The Study on Conventional Farming Practice - A Case Study of Farmers’ Practice in Samroung Village, Cambodia

抄録

Agrochemicals application has been rapidly popularized in Cambodia due to agricultural development technologies. Although agrochemicals utilization has significantly increased crop production, it has negative impact on human health, sustainability of land use and ecosystem. Therefore, this study has been focused on conventional farming practice in Samroung village of Kampong Cham province, Cambodia. The main objectives of this study are 1) to understand current situation of farming practices in the village and 2) to identify the condition of agrochemicals applied at farmlands. To access the objectives of this study, various participatory researches, both quantitative and qualitative have been conducted. Semi-structured interviews, in-depth interviews, focus-group discussion were conducted, and secondary data were used in this study. Data was summarized and analyzed to observe the significant difference and high confident correlation of these variables by using One-way ANOVA and Regression Analysis. The result of the study showed that rice and vegetable production is main sources of farmers in Samroung village. In addition, chemical fertilizer and pesticide are applied for increasing crop production. The amounts of chemical fertilizer and pesticides applied did not correlate with the level education of famers, also with the size of farmland as well (P > 0.05). In addition, the amounts of pesticide applied did not correlate with the total annual household income. However, the amounts of chemical fertilizer applied showed slight correlation with the total annual household income from agriculture (P < 0.05). Also, increasing expenses of agrochemicals application, especially chemical fertilizer application, affects to the farmer’s annual income. Moreover, it affects to their life that depends on low income from their agricultural products. Furthermore, the survey indicated that 92% of farmer in the village want to change their practice to sustainable practice in the future. Therefore, agricultural education such as providing technical training, workshop is necessarily required for promoting sustainable use of agrochemicals as well as alternative ways based on organic farming practices and farming practice with low chemical input.