Organic Rice Farming Systems in Cambodia: Socio-economic Impact of Smallholder Systems in Takeo Province

Abstract

Organic farming is recognized as an important system of agriculture and food production, that is environmentally sustainable and can generate several positive impacts to rural society. The development of organic farming in Cambodia is in its early stage. Thus, the objectives of this research were to identify the farmers’ perception on organic rice farming and to analyze the economic effects of the system. Data collection was carried out through a pretested interview schedule, two types of questionnaires and a personal observation schedule while descriptive and inferential statistics were analyzed with the use of statistical package for the social sciences or SPSS software. The results showed that the majority of farmers converted their farms into organic farms because of premium prices on organic products and 15% increase from their farm incomes compared to conventional farms. Adapting organic rice farming is able to increase rice yields by 5% accounting from 2.46 to 2.59 tons per hectare. The increased amounts of rice production were equivalent to 21%. Furthermore, organic farming systems could be more stable since the analysis of its economic efficiency was higher than conventional farming system.