The declining price of rubber is worrying rubber farmers.
Take Sam Phat, for example, who decided 10 years ago to plant rubber due to the robust demand from China.
“It’s very easy,” she said. “You plant them, give them water and some fertilizer and seven years later you’ll have rubber.”
From any vista in Thbong Khmum province, which borders Vietnam, tidy rows of skinny rubber trees stretch far into the distance. Many families, along with companies investing in large plantations, made a similar decision as Ms. Phat to convert farmland or forest into rubber plantations.
As of last year, rubber trees occupied more than 357,000 hectares in Cambodia, with more than 90,000 hectares old enough for cultivation.
Now, some farmers are regretting their choice of cash crop, after a rough three years in which rubber prices have plummeted.
“It’s good for our family because of the low maintenance and because we can harvest it every day,” Ms. Phat says. “But there’s not enough money.”
Low Prices Hurting Gov’t Plans
An official with the Ministry of Agriculture who requested anonymity said the expansion of rubber cultivation had slowed by nearly half throughout Cambodia. Whereas five years ago, approximately 20,000 hectares of trees were being planted every year, he now estimates new planting to be closer to 10,000 hectares.
In a 2013 speech, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that he hoped that Cambodia could reach 840,000 hectares by 2018.
Since their peak in 2011, when rubber prices in Cambodia reached nearly US$3,000 per ton, export prices have fallen to US$1,650 per ton as of this May.
Last year, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia – the world’s largest rubber exporters –agreed to reduce their supply to drive up prices. Doing so initiated a small jump in prices and the ministry official expects to see more improvement.
Son Sopheak, 31, has felt the industry’s downturn. He works for Memot Rubber Plantation Co, a plantation in Thbong Khmum with more than 9,000 hectares of rubber trees. He moves from tree to tree with a hand blade, using it to cut off a small strip of bark on each trunk. After making the incision, a slow stream of white sap trickles down, into a bowl he’s fastened to the tree. When prices were high and rubber fetched more than 5,000 riels per kilogram, Mr. Sopheak said he could make up to US$200 in a good month. But now he averages just US$125 per month.
Sowing Change
The consistently low export prices have led some families to shift gears altogether.
With the help of his father-in-law, Chieng Thorn, 24, planted black pepper vines on three-quarters of a hectare of land in Kor Village in Thbong Khmum. His family still has three hectares of rubber trees but he hopes the peppers – which fetch more than US$10 per kilo is at an all-time high – will allow them to expand.
“The rubber business is hand to mouth,” he said. “We just spend but we don’t save money.”
Mr. Thorn is waiting anxiously for the first pepper harvest, which should start within the next three months. His family invested US$12,000 on the 800 plants.
The agriculture ministry official says that his department never advises farmers to destroy their rubber fields.
“If you destroy your rubber and then you grow pepper, and then the price drops, then what happens?” he asked. “Keep it and wait to see what happens in the future.”
Some people, like Ms. Phat, have no choice. She says that the returns on her rubber plantation are so small that she can’t afford to switch now.
“We can’t cut down rubber trees to put in pepper,” she said. “And even if we had the space, we wouldn’t have enough money to plant anything else.”