Promoting biodiversity conservation in Cambodia - Cambiodiversity

Austrian project partner: Organisation for International Dialogue and Conflict Management(IDC) Local project partner: Royal University of Agriculture, Cambodia Dr. Chuong Sophal, Edwin de Korte Project manager: Dr. Angela Meyer

Cambodia is situated in the southeast of Asia, its area comprises about 181,000 square kilometres, which are populated by around 13.9 million people.
Rice is presenting the predominantly grown crop, covering 90% of the total agricultural area and providing the population’s main caloric intake. Other crops, such as soybeans or mung beans, taro, groundnuts or sesame, are not sufficiently considered by national policies or research. Therefore, they only occupy a marginal place within the rice-based farming system, despite the nutritional and economic value they could have for the population.
This strong concentration on rice and the neglect of other crops give rise to several risks and problems, notably to a non-balanced nutrition, a non-secure and unsustainable food supply due to external dependencies and the global threat of constant genetic resources.
The project Cambiodiversity is intended, on the one hand, to analyse the current pre-eminent position of rice in Cambodian agricultural system and to assess, on the other hand, the probability and conditions for a further diversification.

The aims of the project are:

• Assessment of Cambodia’s biodiversity, by emphasising on the issue of the predominant position of rice within the country’s agriculture.
• Promotion of the cooperation with other researchers and the establishment of North-South and South-South networks.
• Elaboration of recommendations aiming at improving and supporting Cambodia’s agro-biodiversity.
• Giving local farmers, as well as more specifically women, more possibilities to express their interests and concerns and to have them considered within policy and agenda setting processes on agricultural diversification.
• Promotion of global biodiversity.

Further information:

Organisation for International Dialogue and Conflict Management: http://www.idialog.eu

Poster for the conference "Internationalisation and development policy dimensions at Austrian Higher Education Institutions", 2009 255.27 kb

P161 Report 1.01 mb

P161 Summary Report on Recommendations 91.88 kb

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