Placing Cambodia’s agrarian transition in an emerging Chinese food regime

ABSTRACT

Based on research about Cambodia's rice sector, this article explains how an emerging Chinese food regime contributes to local agrarian transitions. It argues that Chinese-Cambodian trade deals for jasmine rice, alongside Chinese investment in rice mills and irrigation, have intersected with pre-existing relations of production to make farmers' dependence on export commodity markets more precarious. In turn, farmers have received minimal state support, because national policies in Cambodia prioritize domestic agrarian capital over small farmers. This article advances food regime scholarship by analyzing the multiscalar processes, actors, and negotiations that produce specific agrarian transitions.

KEYWORDS:

• Food regime
• agrarian transition
• rice agriculture
• China
• Cambodia

Acknowledgements

This research was carried out as part of the project led by Jefferson Fox entitled, ‘The agrarian transition in Mainland Southeast Asia: Changes in rice farming – 1995–2015.’ Field work was conducted with the help of Seng Ratha, Teng Channavy, Bora Ratana, Moeuy Raksmey, and Thoeun Makara at the University of Battambang. I wish to thank Jennifer Estes, Jefferson Fox, Ian G. Baird, Michael Dunford, as well as the Politics, Economies and Space group in the Department of Geography at National University of Singapore for their helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This questionnaire was standardized to be applicable in six sites across Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia.

2 The majority of Cambodia's rice surplus continues to be exported ‘unofficially’ through border trade with Vietnam and Thailand (Cramb 2020). In this article, I focus on official rice exports of high-quality jasmine rice, because it is the main variety promoted by the Cambodian government for export.

3 For example, in 2017, China exported 781,000 tons to African countries compared to just 74,000 the year before. This jump was linked to the sale of rice from government stockpiles built up through China's domestic agricultural subsidy program launched in 2004 to replace an agricultural tax system (Reuters 2018). To liquidate these stocks of old rice, which do not have a market in China, COFCO has strategically focused on new markets in Africa where demand for global rice imports is growing (Zenovia 2020).

4 Pgaa Romduol is another popular fragrant jasmine rice varietal in Cambodia.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Land Cover and Land Use Change Program, grant #80NSSC18K0287.

Notes on contributors

W. Nathan Green

W. Nathan Green has been assistant professor of geography at the National University of Singapore since January 2020. His research critically examines economic development, agrarian change, and rural livelihoods in Southeast Asia. He is currently leading a project that will investigate the creation of Cambodia's national financial market as part of a larger trend of financialization in Southeast Asia, and how these new markets are transforming agrarian landscapes.