The success in farming of poor farmer in Puok District
Publiceret 27. jan. 2012
By Mr. Pork Kong, District Facilitator in Puok District; IWEP project, Siem Reap and Project Manager Bodil Pallesen, ADDA
January 2012
Life has changed completely for Mr. Mao Choeuy since he joined the IWEP project in 2009 as one of the farmers attending an Integrated Farmer Field School and afterwards joining a Self Help Group in his village. He is now a gifted egg and chicken producer and is able to expand his business even he only has few square meter of land.
Mr. Mao Choeuy, 31 year olds a farmer living in Ampipeam Village, Khnart Commune, Puok District, Siem Reap Province. There are four members in his family his wife and 2 daughters. ‘My main occupy is farming, growing vegetable and raising chicken but what I had tried did not much succeed and no improvement in my living. Indeed, it was enough for lunch but lack of in dinner and I lived in small cottage with the size of 4 x 5 (m)’ said Mr. Mao Choeuy. His family is ID poor 2 category ranked by local authority annually. He told us that so far he had faced very hardship vegetable growing is neither for selling nor home consumption and he used to buy from others. He used to grow only herb, spring onion with small plot of back yard. Similarly with animal raising, he had only 4 to 5 scavenging chickens and all infected disease and died. His children often got sick and my wife was busy with taking care of children no time to help him. He often left from home and sold labour far away from family as construction worker, soil carrier, etc and got little income to pay for treatment of his children. ‘When we lacked of food we had to borrow from other villagers with high interest (100-200%) and so our life was living in debt and pay load without ending’ he said.
In 2009, ADDA has announced Integrated Women Empowerment Project in my village with its objectives to help poor villagers through conduction of Integrated Farmer Field School (IFFS) and establishment of Self Help Group. I was very interested in and voluntarily participated in IFFS. I was selected as demonstration plot owner for other participants. During conduction of IFFS, I completely followed the technical guideline and advised from project staff such as seed selection, land preparation, fertilization, and water management and moreover I made solid compost, liquid compost and bio-pesticide, etc. Similarly in chicken raising, I fully followed the technical guideline, build chicken house, species selection, vaccination, local home-made feed preparation as well as management techniques by following each step of production cycle. I received 5 heads of chickens (average weight of 1kg/head).
Mr. Mao Choeuy checks eggs in incubator and feeding chickens.
Mr. Choeuy says: “After participation in Integrated Women Empowerment Project, my living standard has been gradually improving through selling of chicken and vegetable. Hens provided by project started laying eggs and some of eggs have been cooked to feed his children and some were sold. So now my children are healthy and rarely sick as before”.
Picture to the left is showing Mr. Choeuy's house before participating in the IWEP project and to the right we see the house improvements after participation the project.
Because of his commitment, nowadays he satisfies with the success of chicken raising and it is the main income for his family. Beside home consumption, market sized chickens have been selling to local market. Moreover premature chickens (0.5kg/head) have been bought and ordered by villagers who recognized his chickens grow faster at the higher price of 5$/head. The average income of his family is about 125U$ a month from selling of chickens, vegetables and wild fish.
At the present, he has 2 egg incubators with capacity of 300 eggs and in November 2011 he sold 41kg of chickens and got income about 140U$ and 35 U$ income from vegetable selling. He has kept 12 hens, 1 cock and 5 adult chickens.
A new production of species for the market is produced on the few square meter of his farm, giving an extra income for the family.
Mr. Mao Choeuy is a member and cashier of Self Help Group consists of 18 members including 12 women. He said that ‘ I can do record keeping properly and has ability to manage group money well and raise fund from group members to contribute in building of Rice Storage and then received the support 660 U$ from Y-menetter through ADDA for buying 2.112kg of paddy rice’ He is also the rice bank leader.
Mr. Mao Choeuy is proud of achievements and commitment that leads to the change of his living standard and now he has been renovating his house. Now his family was discarded from ID poor list as last year.
Mr. Mao Choeuy says: "Strong commitment in application of appropriate techniques and social development that has inspired from IWEP leads me to escape from poverty and live in dignity".
