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Factors Related to Agricultural Land Use of Smallholder Farmers in Ouheng Village, Cambodia
Thesis Abstract:
As concerns over struggle for agricultural land use in northeastern Cambodia are increasing, smallholder farmers are becoming highly affected by household’s characteristics, local biological components, training, and extension visits. As a consequence, these issues prompted a combination of qualitative- and quantitative- based research that aimed to (1) study characteristics of agricultural land use of smallholder farmers, and (2) identify the factors related to agricultural land use of smallholder farmers in Ouheng Village, Cambodia. This research was carried out by purposive sampling of 30 respondents with less than three hectares of land, as well as interview of three key informants. Two focus group discussions were conducted with 10 persons in each group. This study was based on the household survey in 2015 using applied descriptive statistics and Chi-square test run by SPSS version 16. Chi-square test was also used to find the relationship of traits related to agricultural land use by comparing the group that changed cropping patterns with the group that did not change in cropping patterns. The findings indicated that there were a number of factors related to land use, local biological components, socioeconomic, access to credit, and technological conditions. The results also showed that land use by smallholder farmers in Ouheng Village averaged 1.5 ha per household, and mainly dominated by paddy fields and followed by cassava cultivation. The cassava area has increased significantly by 21.92 percent in 2015 because of favorable prices and easier market access.
New crop varieties, including vegetables and rice that are tolerant to drought and resistant to diseases, should be made available. Improved agricultural skills, along with better crop management technique training, should be enhanced at communal level to strengthen rural livelihoods.