Siem Reap, KH – Vegetable sales pay for livestock

The PPP family live in Peaksneng Village, Siem Reap. Mr. PPP is a former construction worker and currently works as a licensed chainsaw machine operator cutting trees for a local lumber yard. Before joining the Peaksneng Thormacheat Garden Shop’s Food Always In The Home (FAITH) organic vegetable garden program, the family depended completely on the 8,000 riel (US $2.00) per day Mr. PPP made at the lumberyard. Mrs PPP explains that “At home, we used to grow only a few local types of vegetables like morning glory and bottled gourds. This was because we did not have the experience or knowledge to grow anything else and did not know that we could get a good income by selling vegetables.”

After receiving training, help building a vegetable garden, and continued mentoring visits from the garden shop team, the family learned how to be more productive in their garden. The family are now applying the techniques they learned from the shop team, like inter-cropping and relay planting. Mrs. PPP is surprised by how well the vegetables grow when they are planted with companion plants. She now plants many types of vegetables including squash, spinach, spring onion, wax gourd, long beans, and eggplant. When she is harvesting her gourd and spinach, she earns 20,000 riel (US$5) per day. The family have been able to buy a few ducks and chickens with the money they have earned from their first harvest. Mrs PPP says “having these chickens and ducks helps me and my family in so many ways—we earn money by selling their eggs, their droppings are a great fertilizer for our garden and, best of all, we can eat the eggs!”

The family are now confident that they can earn more income from vegetable growing and livestock, so they will expand their vegetable growing area this season. It is their dream to continue to invest their garden profits in livestock so that they can increase their health and income.