CAMBODIA

Features of the investment project

Direct foreign land investments projects on a large scale, and purchase of large concessions by Cambodian companies, in a highly insecure food context.

Scale	From 50 000 Ha (Kuwaiti project for rice production) to 300 000 Ha (agricultural production and forest working projects on Pheapimex behalf, a Cambodian company) without forgetting various projects which scale is in the order of 100 000 Ha (food production and rubber plantation)
Aims	Food production (rice and corn-cattle food) and non-food production (rubber, logging)
Modes of production	Industrial type for large-scale cases
Economic, social and environmental impacts	Numerous cases of violent eviction identified
Social protest	Local opposition more or less organised. Growing protestation at a national level took over by International NGOs (including 3D three, Global Witness). The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights examined the difficulties met by the populations living in the areas targeted by some Kuwaiti investments. It expressed its worries and used its authority to give more weight to the efforts of the NGOs to defend the investments based on family-size agriculture. .

Description of the identified situation

5 % of the Cambodian population lives below the poverty line and in a situation of chronic malnutrition. More than one million persons are thus directly depending on the WFP food aid.

The government received a large number of requests from foreign investors, coming especially from countries willing to secure their food supply (Qatar promised to invest 200 million dollars in the Cambodian agriculture, and Kuwait more than 500 million dollars in the form of loans to fund the infrastructures in return for the opportunity to produce rice for the two countries). Requests come from the bordering countries as well: Vietnamese investors are looking for lands to plant rubber trees and produce rubber, and South-Korean investors request land for the production of corn..

Since the middle of the 90’s, foreign and Cambodian companies also obtained numerous concessions for logging. 7 Million Ha, this is to say almost 40 % of the land’s area, were subject to concession contracts signed with the Government.

The organizations of the civil society globally denounce the opacity around these land allocations and the numerous violent evictions. LICADHO, a Cambodian association for the defence of the Human Rights, considers that 250 000 persons in 13 provinces have been evicted since 2003.

A recent report, from Global Witness identifies the numerous governance failures that determine, according to the Organization, the nature, the speed, and the harmful impacts of the investments observed in Cambodia at social, environmental and economic levels .

See the article of presentation of the selected cases, for more details about the nature of this work, its limits and its objective.

Sources

« Rural poor petition Cambodian authorities over land grab », Robert Carmichael in Phnom Penh, ABC Radio Astralia, 13/08/2009 ;
« Cambodia: A land up for sale? », By Robert Walker, BBC, 12/08/2009 ;
« Farmers forgotten in oil-for-food deals », Asia Times, 31/07/2009 ;
« Cambodian fund Leopard Capital makes two new investment », AltAssets, 26/06/2009 ;
« Food security: We need a strategy for rice », Johannes Simbolon, Jakarta Post, 17/06/09 ;
« Holding the actors involved the global land grab to account: the Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights urges action from Cambodia », 3D Three, 17/06/09 » ;
« Asia: Land grabs threaten food security », IRIN, 10/06/2009 ;
« Cambodia debates merits of land sales », The National, 31/05/2009 ;
«Disputes erupt over plans to invest millions in rice farming », The Economist, 23/04/09 ;
« Hungry for land, global trends », by Maywa Montenegro, Seed Magazine, 27/04/2009 ;
« Country for sale. How Cambodia’s elite has captured the country’s extractive industries », Global Witness, February 2009 (70 pages).

Translation

Marie-France Genèvre