Help Build Community Farms in Cambodia

The Together Farm is a chemical free and sustainable community farm in Cambodia dedicated to education through agriculture and developing long-term solutions to combat food insecurity in rural villages.

 

 

The COVID-19 Pandemic has left hundreds of thousands of people in Cambodia out of a job, and many struggling to make ends meet. Although the country has managed to vaccinate the vast majority of its population, the economy has yet to recover and many in rural villages are struggling with food insecurity. We believe that more long-term solutions are required to bring people in need sustainable relief; we created the Together Farm to do this.

 

Our goal is to make the Together Farm a fully self-sustaining farming system that can be recreated for community gardens in rural villages across Cambodia. The Together Farm will be used as a ‘Beta’ Farm to test the program’s implementation, improve techniques, and train new farmers from the villages where community gardens will be built. Already, the Together Farm includes a Hydroponics Greenhouse, 28x28 meter Net Garden, a Mushroom House, and space for a future Aqua-Pond to raise fish and frogs. The farm is entirely chemical free, uses organic fertilizer, and run entirely by local Cambodians.

 

Our most effective farming system is our Hydronics Greenhouse. It produces a higher yield and better quality produce, and uses less space and substantially less water than traditional farming practices. The Hydroponics Greenhouse comes with one problem-it uses a lot of electricity. Currently, we are hooked up to the cities power grid, but this leaves us susceptible to frequent blackouts, and our goal is to make the farm completely self-sustaining and environmentally sustainable. With your help, we can add solar panels to power the Greenhouse and other structures on the Together Farm. For just $8,000 we can install a system to ensure that the farm is completely self-sustaining, environmentally friendly, and ready to educate local communities on sustainable farming practices.

 

 

Who are we?

 

The Together Project (TTP) is an initiative created by the all Cambodian NGO the Rural Schools Support Organization (RSSO). RSSO is dedicated to supporting the rural and underserved people of Cambodia. A sister NGO of the Landmine Relief Fund, RSSO has initiated projects to build, supply, and maintain 27 schools across rural Cambodia. RSSO is a constantly expanding and evolving organization, adapting to support those most in need.

 

As a program of RSSO, the Together Project evolved from the Covid-19 pandemic. In early 2020, with the spread of the COVID-19 virus and the closing of countries across the globe, Cambodia had shut down tighter than most. In an effort to protect themselves from the virus, the closing of Cambodia’s borders had a devastating effect on its economy with an estimated 390,000 people losing their jobs. The once booming tourist industry in Cambodia had come to an abrupt halt with suspension of all tourist visas. Suddenly, once bustling tourist destinations like Angkor Wat have become empty. Cambodia’s garment factories, its largest employer, had also closed down resulting in a loss of 100,000 jobs alone.

 

 

With the loss of so many jobs leaving some without any food to eat, RSSO decided to start a program to feed those affected by the ‘Covid Economy’. In May of 2020 RSSO bought 20 tons of rice, some noodles, fish sauce, soy sauce, salt, and sugar to distribute to those in need. We have continued to purchase rice and work with the local commune chiefs to distribute food and identify those most in need. By the end of 2020, on top of food distribution, we understood that long term solutions were needed, and a new initiative began: Sustainable Crop Farming. We called this this program the Together Farm.

 

Our Mission

 

Working with a degreed agronomist as our project manager, RSSO partnered with the Royal University of Agriculture in Phnom Penh to help develop the program. With all the progress that Cambodia has made the past few decades, there are still little opportunities for people to implement environmentally sustainable infrastructure and practices like we have in more developed countries. Around 80% of Cambodia’s population is considered rural, meaning that most people don’t consider sustainability in place of tradition practices. We want the Together Farm to be a proof of concept for people in Cambodia; to show that a completely self-sustaining, chemical free, and environmentally sustainable farming system can exist anywhere you place it in the country, and to educate local communities on its operations and its importance to the environment.

 

 

The ultimate goal of the Together Farm is to not only grow food to sustain itself, but to be used as a teaching farm for future community gardens to be built near the 27 schools constructed by RSSO. The Together Farm will house interns to be taught by our project manger on the various farming practices we have on site. RSSO will raise the money to build the necessary structures in rural villages where the newly taught interns could then utilize and teach their communities.

 

Future Improvements and Partnership with Texas A&M

The Together Farm is constantly growing and finding new ways to better serve our mission, and we have partnered with Texas A&M University to help with this effort. Working with the Together Project, Texas A&M Architecture students are designing new buildings on the Together Farm to be used as a distribution center, visitor’s center, and residential building for incoming interns. The project will provide the Together Farm with schematic designs for the new building within its own parameters and allow students to become familiar with working in an international arena, as well as be introduced to appropriate regional responses to architecture that respects Cambodian social, cultural, and economic realities. This project is a continuation of a long running partnership with Texas A&M, when previously they worked with our sister NGO the Landmine Relief Fund and presented schematic designs for new buildings, dormitories for child survivors of land mines, and a small school at the famous Cambodian Landmine Museum. 

Where does your donation go?

 

Every donation that is given to this fundraiser will go to supporting the Together Farm and its operations. Our next big step in the program is shifting off the electrical grid onto our own solar power system. Solar is still new in Cambodia, and a little more expensive than in the West, but we believe that the benefits of having a completely self-sustaining and clean energy source are imperative to our mission.

 

A quote from a local solar company estimates the cost to design, deliver, and install a whole system to be around $7,360. This will power the entire existing farm. It does not include powering the Aqua Pond, which is still to be built. Including the Aqua Pond will bring our total cost to approximately $8,000. Any donation raised past our $8,000 goal will contribute to this same mission- building for sustainable agricultural infrastructure in Cambodia, and education for rural communities on its operations.

 

 

With your help we can bring this project to the next level and show people that combating food insecurity can be accomplished in a sustainable way. You can learn more about RSSO, TTP, and the Landmine Relief Fund at the links below. Together we can help build a more sustainable future for the rural people of Cambodia.

 

None of this is done alone.

 

Websites:

Rural Schools Support Organization

 

The Together Project

 

The Landmine Relief Fund