Imagine one day you lost the job you solely depend on to feed yourself and your family, how is it like? This is what happened to Ot Saven, 38-year-old woman from Romdeng village, Khna Po commune, Sotr Nikum district, Siem Reap province. Though living with a chronic illness, her husband, Ham Sokleang, joined her to work as construction worker. They both need to wake up at 3 a.m. in the morning to prepare food, and get ready for a long traveling to their workplace nearby the city. They also arrive home very late in the evening. During the lockdown, they became unsure what they were going to do to feed the family.   

“It [construction work] was a very difficult job for me and my sick husband. We do not have even a single plot for rice farming. We cannot be feeling relief when we do not have rice stock,” Saven said and added that, “during the lockdown period, I had to borrow some kilograms of rice from my cousin.”

Funding support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) allowed the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), and local partners to implement a project to help vulnerable family like Saven to escape hunger.

With a strong support of Provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (PDAFF), the project offered trainings to farmers to practice safe, nutrition-sensitive and climate resilient agriculture with emphasis on short cycle agricultural production - vegetables, chicken, fish and frog.

Meanwhile, vulnerable households received a considerable amount of cash transferred by the project to enable them to purchase agricultural inputs and basic assets to start vegetable production, fish and frog raising in plastic tank, and native chicken production.

Thanks to project’s support, Saven received a total of USD 330, which she used to start a vegetable production on approximately 450 square meters right behind her home.

“My family consumes half of the vegetables I produce, and I sell the surplus to a local middleman. Some nearby villagers also buy my vegetables. For this, I am very content that I can generate a small income daily.”

Saven proudly shared that she earned 430 000 Riel (USD 107.5) from the first cycle of her vegetable production after family’s consumption. This has also motivated her to grow vegetable as a business and has also expanded from cultivating yardlong bean, eggplant, morning glory, and choi sum to including a few other vegetables such as corn and cucumber.

“As a woman, I find cultivating vegetables at home is easy. The support from the project allowed me to install water system that saves me time and labour. I applied the techniques I learned from the trainings such as preparing land and intercropping method, which allow me to receive double yield.”

With a big smile on her face, Saven continued that, “I am not skinny as when I was a construction worker. I am very content that myself is healthier (gaining weight) and I have more time with my kids. I will continue vegetable growing business and stop working as a construction worker.”

She added that her husband will keep working as construction worker, but he will join the works offer inside the community.    

Saven also received close to USD 80 through joining the project’s first cash-for-work activity, which was to rehabilitate a tertiary canal in her commune, allowing her to cover the medicines of her husband. In addition, as an IDPoor household, Saven’s family benefits from the Government’s cash transfer programme. The cash her family receives regularly combined with the project supports helps relieve her family hardship during the pandemic.

From the same village, Seap Sak, 48 years old, is a person with disability relying mainly on remittance from his children, who are migrant workers in Thailand, to ensure survival of the six members in the family.

However, because of the COVID-19 outbreak, his children did not have secured job and thus could not send money home as before. Luckily, Sak’s family received USD 60 from the Government’s cash transfer programme to support families holding ID Poor card to meet their immediate needs. Part of the amount Sak uses to pay for his family’s monthly loan. 

Prior to the support from the Project, he stated he himself had reduced daily intake since he wanted to keep it for other small children in the family.

Since he cannot perform any heavy work, he decided to raise fish (catfish) with support of the project.

“After two-month and 15 days, I could harvest the fish. I’ve kept the fish for my family consumption, and my wife has prepared yummy meal with fish several times a week. It did reduce our spend on food,” said Sak. He also added that, “all of our family members like its taste. Some of our villagers also like it after having tried the fish.”

Sak did not harvest the fish at once to sell at market, as ensuring family’s consumption is his priority. But he often sells it to those villagers who want his fish in USD 2.5 per Kilogram. Some of his nearby villagers also showed their interest to replicate his practice. By the time that we talked to Sak, he already prepared his plastic tank to raise the next cycle of fish production.

As a part of the project interventions emphasizing on short cycle agricultural production, the project supports 1 000 vulnerable households like Sak and Saven between January 2021 and July 2022 in two provinces of Cambodia: Siem Reap and Banteay Meanchey. The project uses CASH+ approach by providing complementary interventions (productive assets, inputs, technical training, and extension services) to the government cash transfer programme to protect the livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable households during the pandemic while strengthening their productive capacities to the future shocks.