Ploughing rice paddy field with water buffalo in preparation for transplanting rice to the paddy. - - Programme for Food Security (SPFS): SPFP/CMB/6701. Eighty percent of the Cambodian population is dependent on subsistence farming with rice as the main agricultural crop. The agricultural sector contributes to almost 50 percent of the GDP of the country, although agricultural productivity is low in comparison with neighboring countries in Asia. Food production remains highly vulnerable to the effects of adverse weather conditions such as flooding or droughts. Years of civil strife have taken substantial agricultural areas out of production, and a large part of the population of Cambodia is subject to temporary, seasonal or chronic food shortages and nutritional deficiencies.

The objective of the Special Programme for Food Security in Cambodia is to maximize national food self-sufficiency and to reduce the risks of disruptive variations in supply, by demonstrating and facilitating a rapid increase in agricultural productivity and food production on an economically and environmentally sustainable basis. Various techniques and technologies have been identified to increase agricultural production, depending on the potential and constraints in the seven selected pilot areas. These include water control techniques, crop intensification, improved pig and poultry production, analysis and evaluation.

Integrated pest management is one of the crop intensification technologies and farmers' field schools are set up to educate farmers' groups in the pilot areas.