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“Where I found the money to build the fowl run? I went to work in a textile factory for three months,” Bun Nov explains matter-of-factly. Like many other Cambodians, she is a very resourceful person. One year ago she was raising pigs and growing morning glory to sell, in addition to cultivating rice as a subsistence crop. Now, twelve months later, she has added poultry farming, mushroom growing and fish culture to her increasing list of farming activities.

Bun Nov and her husband in front of her mushroom cultivationWhen, in 2009, she joined VVOB’s ImAgE programme at age 26, she was amongst the younger members of the village’s farmer group. But despite her young age, she’s considered as one of the most dynamic and busy farmers of her group. “I’ve learned a lot from the programme,” Bun smiles, “For example, they taught me how to build a fowl run to help prevent disease instead of letting the chickens roam around freely all the time.” The rest of the required capital that she couldn’t raise herself during her three-month-long stint in the textile factory, she received through a US$500 microfinance loan from the Cambodian Acleda Bank. Nowadays Bun is looking more positively towards the future. The money that her 31-year-old husband earns with his motorcycle repair work is just about enough to live on for the young couple and their 3-year-old little daughter. Any profit Bun makes from her farming activities can now be set aside as savings.

Chicken battery cage - Cambodian styleThe young farmer hopes that she can earn her investment back in about one year. This does not include the fish pond for which she needed a small plot of land. Her parents-in-law offered her the plot for US$1,000 which she is allowed to pay back little by little over time. But Bun is not complaining. “I can make about US$1,200 every four months, which earns me a net profit of around US$500-600. On a yearly basis, that’s US$500 more than last year.”

Her lowest earning crop is the morning glory. “The (financial) benefit of the morning glory is very modest, but if the market price is too low I can use it to feed the pigs and safe money that way,” she explains. With a plot of only 200 square metres, also the rice is still a subsistence crop for Bun. But since she joined the farmer group her practice has improved and her expenses have decreased. “I don’t use the SRI (System of Rice Intensification) technique but now I spend less money on seeds and plant them with bigger gaps in between, still I arrive at the same yield as before.”

Farmer Bun Nov in her plot of morning gloryOther farmers are watching the young woman with interest. But according to her, some lack access to investment capital to follow in her footsteps. While she’s feeding her chickens, Bun’s approving eye falls upon a nest filled with white and brown eggs. She remains enthusiastic about the future. When asked about what she sees as her biggest challenge, she talks about receiving more technical advice on cultivating crops and animal husbandry. “I would like to continue to learn more and more!” she laughs.