Siem Reap, KH – We receive help and we share what we have learnt – 31 Jan 2020

BKC feels that his partnership with the Peaksneng Thormacheat Garden shop to grow cucumber is enabling him to use his entrepreneur skills to pay back the shop for the assistance it gave him with building his vegetable garden back in 2013. BKC considers the partnership with Rey, the manager of Peaksneng Thormacheat Garden shop, as an important achievement because it has given him the opportunity to share his knowledge with the shop team. He says that “We receive help and we share what we have learnt”.

His competence has grown over the years through learning and experience in vegetable gardening, which has helped him develop essential capabilities. For example, he has increased his awareness of how important it is to grow your own healthy food, and also about opportunities for marketing his vegetables that have enabled him to grow from a small family to a commercial size farm.

When BKC started the family garden the family knew that there were physical and mental benefits that came from gardening, but they never expected the garden to have such a wide and positive impact on their lives. He says that “Our diet improved, we got plenty of exercise and sunshine from garden work, our collective stress is now at an all-time low and our children are now actually excited about eating healthy food. We have even inspired other neighbor to follow us and start vegetable gardening”.

For all the benefits, BKC has to manage the challenges of bugs, the increasingly long duration of the dry season, and high temperatures that do not favor the plants. Despite these obstacles, the family are positive that they we will keep moving forward to improve their lives.