FMD and the need for Poverty Alleviation in Cambodia

An eyewitness account of the impact of FMD on a small farmers

Mrs Vuch Lim and her husband, Mr Por Heng are both 44 years and their 6 children live in Preksho village where Mrs Lim grew up, in Saang District, Kandal Province in Cambodia. They feel lucky as they have six cows as well as a small piece of land nearby in which they could grow rice to feed their family.

The average income in Cambodia in the rural sector is about $40 per month; Mrs Lim and her husband are no different. Normally they would make about 10,000 riels ($US2.40) per trip when their cattle transport sugar cane or other goods.

One morning Mrs. Lim woke to find one of her cows was sick. With some help from the village Animal Health Worker she realised her cow had FMD. This is the first time she had encountered the disease and was very upset as she knew that with FMD she would not be able to use her cow for ploughing and draughting transport for some time. Over the next 4 weeks, each of her other 5 cattle also contracted the disease. This had a huge economic impact on Mrs Lim and her family.

Aggravating the situation, the FMD outbreaks occurred at the start of the planting season, towards the end of June 2006. The cattle could not be used to plough other people’s paddy fields - a loss of 15,000 riels ($US3.60) per day. And they could not plough their own rice paddies, thus losing the opportunity to plant rice for one-cropping season. This means that they have to buy their rice supply for the next six months from outside. They couldn’t rent cattle from other farmers because the disease had devastated most of the cattle in their village, and if they could rent from another village they did not have the money.

Given that their cattle are their source of income, Mrs Lim borrowed some cash to buy medicines to save their animals. In total, they spent around 300,000 Riels ($US75) for the supplementary treatment for each animal. By Cambodian standard this is too high, but Mrs Lim took the risk of spending this much to ensure the survival of their cattle, so they could start to rent their animals again once recovered.

This information was gathered first-hand by Dr Stephane Forman and Ms Nichola Hungerford, SEAFMD RCU staff, during their visit in Cambodia in July this year. A field investigation was conducted with Dr Kao Phal, Director General of Department of Animal Health and Production (DAHP), Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries (MAFF) and Dr Sorn San, Head of the National Animal Health and Production Investigation Centre.

According to DAHP report, the recent FMD epizootic affected 11 provinces in Cambodia. In Kandal province, 8 districts and 3,879 cattle and buffalo were affected. This year’s FMD outbreaks were so devastating that for the first time the Minister of Agriculture ordered to buy 20,000 doses of FMD vaccines to contain the epidemic. In the previous years, the government did not budget for FMD vaccines because of limited resources.

To get funding to support FMD control in Cambodia, the SEAFMD RCU assisted the DAHP in revising the old FMD Plan and developed a new Comprehensive FMD Strategic Plan for submission to the Cambodian government through MAFF.

Mrs Lim is waiting for the day that her cattle will reliably bring is cash daily through hauling or ploughing rice paddies, without worries that this will be abruptly stopped by an FMD outbreak.