Characteristics of the rice marketing system in Cambodia

Although Cambodia achieved an overall self-sufficiency in rice supply in 1995, many obstacles such as poor roads and illegal fee collections by government officials increase the marketing costs and create distribution barriers to deficit areas. Farmers' income remains very low because they have poor bargaining power for rice price formation due to limited chances to meet buyers and not much information of agro-product prices available. Some collectors dominate the. marketing by lending money, selling seeds and fertilizer on credit to the majority of farmers. Farmers have almost no other options once they borrowed money. In addition, an unimproved rice quality standard causes no incentive for improvements in rice quality. Creating an open paddy market, where many buyers and sellers gather for their paddy transaction, will provide more opportunities for farmers to see better buyers. Also, such markets will form an open-index-price reflecting the supply/demand situation of the production area.