Mr. Sorn Pov is a 53 years old man who over the last 2 years, has been successfully making a living out of his farm. He is currently residing in Rattanakiri province, and he is a father of three boys all of them entirely in his responsibility. Mr. Sorn Pov has been a farmer in his entire life, but the fortune from his previous work was way inferior if compared to the last 2 years.
However, things changed when I get to know NTFP. I was introduced to NTFP through the village chief who happened to be a good friend of mine. A short while after the introduction, NTFP staff came to visit my farm and started to inquire some questions related to what was necessary for farming.
After a while, he was receiving those support including, farming materials, a water pumping motor, the technical lesson on crop selections and care processes, and generating natural and poisonous fertilizer.
Below is his shared way of work over the last two years with NTFP;
“I think most of my livelihood improvement comes from NTFP support. I was able to entirely working with my farm progressively and confidentially. I was able to shift my way of doing agriculture from primitive to more like a modern way to which I implied what I have learned from NTFP. Since then, I have embraced a few biggest challenges such as conducting a market survey that matches the type of my vegetables. The one lesson I learn from one step to another is [the best and most effective way to meet the market demand is to have as many types of vegetables as possible, and the reason why I say this is because I experience the occasion. There was a time that I was trying to sell my cucumber while it was over demand to which the buyers try to lower the price than normal, but since I have other vegetables to their demand, I can still ask for the normal price to which make these different vegetables become complementary to each other.] However, despite the improvements in terms of yield production and income, the biggest challenge is that I can only harvest 4-5 months per year which another half of the years will still pose a threat to my living since most of the time I keep having water problems.”
Having more successful experiences than other farmers, Mr. SORN Pov has reported that he is quite active in sharing his knowledge with his fellow farmers both practically and in theories. From what know here is a few tips he shared with our researchers;
` ” (1) you have to have a willingness to work in this agriculture sector. Famers who wish to work in this area need to be fully committed to it, and this willingness can be testified; meaning when you fail, you will find a new way to do it. (2) Agricultural techniques are needed to match climate change and the yield of production. And (3) Keep learning about the market demands and try to plant as many vegetable types as you can because it will help you to navigate around the market demand.”
Mr. SORN strongly addressed that, ” I am planning to transform from a half-commercial farmer to a fully commercial former but to do that I have to resolution toward my water problems so that I do it for the whole year.” Mr. Sorn Pov’s revenue is 20-40 million riels per month; according to his response, from merely his 1 hector farm consists of 10 types of vegetables where he can earn up to 4-5 months a year.
