Resource information
In Cambodia, the majority of the population is still composed of smallholder family farmers. 54% of the total labour force is employed in agriculture. They have access to 3.6 million ha of land, representing 19% of the country’s total land. The rest is divided between large scale economic land concessions (12%), public forests and protected areas, unclassified areas and some infrastructure.
The population is still growing, and contrary to what many people think, the farmer population also continues to grow, despite rural-urban migration and the development of the industry and services sector. As a result, farms are divided, landlessness is growing, and many farmer’s children from the central plains migrate to other parts of the country looking for land. The question addressed by this study is: if the present trends continue, how much land will be needed to ensure the livelihoods of family farmers in Cambodia in the next 20 years?
The study by Jean-Christophe Diepart, synthesises available data on land use, land tenure and demographic trends to answer to this question, and will serve as input to the policy debate organized by MRLG in Cambodia. The prognosis exercise is based on two scenarios: one related to the rate of transfer of active labour from agriculture to industry and the services sectors, and another related to the area of farmland that might be provided to smallholder farmers. It concludes that smallholder farmers will need between 320,000 ha and 1,960,000 ha of additional land, with an average scenario of 1.6 million ha. The study explores different policies by which the Government of Cambodia could meet this target, and highlights the potential of the reallocation of cancelled ELCs as one promising avenue for policy dialogue.
