Farmers receive fish and frogs from Oddar Meanchey provincial Department of Agriculture in cooperation with Germany’s GIZ on Tuesday. INFORMATION MINISTRY
The Oddar Meanchey provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will continue to distribute frog, fish and chickens to poor and newly unemployed Cambodian migrant workers who have just returned from Thailand. The assistance will help about 900 households during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Department director Sot Si Sok Kheang said that while people are experiencing economic difficulties due to Covid-19, the agriculture ministry has always provided food and taken care of people’s livelihoods.
The ministry is currently implementing Germany’s Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ) project to improve people’s livelihoods by providing the animals.
“The project will run for four months from June to October with animals distributed to 900 families who in three sectors: frogs, chicken and catfish farming,” he said.
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Through the GIZ project, of the 900 families receiving assistance 300 raised frogs, 300 run chicken farms and 300 families grew catfish. Each family received 250 frogs, 450 fish and 12 chickens.
He pointed out that in addition to providing seeds, he also provided a bag of feed, tent for raising fish as well as providing technical training to assist in understanding the techniques of raising and feeding the animals, and changing water.
However, he said that in this GIZ project, only 600 families were given frogs and catfish, while the chickens have not been distributed yet as they need to be vaccinated.
“The remaining 300 families have not received the chickens because they have not been vaccinated yet, but we will finish vaccinations this week. We cannot give unvaccinated chickens to farmers as the chickens could die and farmers will lose money,” he said.
Si Sok Kheang added that the animals given to the people are all good options for food or can be sold.
“Because frogs grow fast, they can be sold in just over a month and about two months for catfish. While chickens can be eaten or sold after two or three months,” he said.
In addition, the agriculture department has organised for people to buy chickens from the community.
