Cambodia has particularly good land for agriculture and this is the country’s main source of income, employing up to 80% of the population.  The country experiences a significant amount of rainfall each year, between 1000 and 1500mm.  In such a tropical climate, rain forests, wildlife and crops thrive.  With an average temperature of about 31 degrees celsius, this region provides a very good growing environment.

Approximately 5 percent of Cambodia’s resident live in north-western Banteay Meanchey province.  This is only a small proportion of people, approximately 800,000.  Despite its relative isolation from the city and limited number of residents, the infrastructure is somewhat developed with overseas investment providing for road construction and power supplies from Thailand providing good access to the province.

Banteay Meanchey province has a tourist attraction in the Banteay Chhmar Palace ruins which was built between the 12^th and 13^th centuries.  The palace is currently being restored with a long-term commitment by UNESCO to fund the restoration. 

Our land is just a few kilometres from the ancient palace site and close to the cooler mountains near the border with Thailand.  In the near future the small town will grow into a popular tourist destination.  Off the beaten track in a patch of untouched rural Cambodia, there is great opportunity to attract tourist dollars in this location.  There are presently many opportunities for investment into this region. We hope to build a guesthouse, restaurant, bakery and ice works.  With the right investment there is also opportunity for an electricity company.

The primary focus of this project however is agriculture.  Many farmers in this region live season to season subsistence farming their rice crops and supplementing their income with illegal logging or other unsustainable forestry activities.  It is these farmers we will target in this project.

We are establishing the land as a model farm to demonstrate Natural Farming techniques in growing crops, farming pigs, cattle and chickens.  There are great opportunities to increase the farmers’ incomes through diversification and value added industries in this area.  We have a cooperative of farmers who want to work together with us to market our produce both locally and internationally. 

The young men and women from Sovanapoom Care’s vocational training project will be trained and employed in the Agriculture project and other related businesses in this region.  In this way we will provide employment for the young people graduating from our training programs and achieve sustainability for Sovanapoom Care’s work in Cambodia.