the 2h project

With over 80% of Cambodia's population living in rural and remote areas, Farming for Futures provides local employment opportunities and empowers an indigenous response to the challenge of poverty alleviation. By planting crops suitable to the Cambodian climate, using local knowledge and expertise, Farming for Futures presents a successful investment in sustainable livelihoods.

Supervisors manage day-to-day responsibilities including cultivation and planting, ongoing maintenance and harvest. Profi ts are then used to create small business loans. It’s now possible for people to benefit from the ownership of land that was previously only available to a privileged few.

Strong regional expansion and the national road development have ensured good capital growth, trade with neighboring countries and excellent market returns at harvest.

No Von Trapps Out Here

The corn on either side makes it easy to see. The track on the top of the ridge provides a high point to look down from. Its 10 hectares of traditional Cambodian potato. Didn’t think green could be so green! The haze I’m not so sure about. Reminiscent of the gums in the Blue Mountains back home. The horizon a little similar with a bowl of ranges running round the edge of a beautifully fertile farming region. Fresh air. Fresh, like cool and clean. Both pollution and humidity free. Can’t help feeling like singing a verse or two of ‘Climb every mountain’. But no Von Trapps out here.

Thankfully it’s off the tourist route. It’s industry of another kind we’re interested in. Farming for futures. In 2006 2h was able to fund the purchase of this strip of farming land. It really is a strip, a little over 100 metres wide and approximately 900 metres long. Flares out at the bottom edge and drops away to a cool fresh water creek, complete with a bunch of banana palms with ... you guessed it, bunches of bananas! The idea was a simple one. Buy the land, farm the land, sell the produce, and use the profits.

Top 40 Cambodia

Adjectives are in abundance. ‘Alive’ comes to mind. Hard to tell whether it’s the geography or the philanthropy that’s working on your soul out here. Everything about this place makes you want to shout ‘Hallelujah’ and high five the person standing next to you. You get the feeling you’re on a winner! It’s November 2007 and we just managed to add a further 40 hectares of farming land to the original 10. That means a compliment of three supervisors is now needed to work the 50 hectare property and oversee the operation.

A huge cheer from one of our workers, Kuchea. His wife has been working in Phnom Penh for around two years. She earns the extra needed to support the family back home. That’s a 9 hour bus trip away. Kuchea and his two daughters only see her for a day and a night every three months. With the extra 40 hectares of land we can now afford to employ Kuchea full time and his wife can come home to stay. I’ve never seen a smile so big! That’s a snap shot of the future. But hundreds of people will benefit. In the next 12 months we aim to own the property freehold. After that, the anticipated harvests will create the finance to start some 250 small business loans each year!

Field of Dreams

The purchase of a further 40 hectares of land makes our project a growing concern. Kevin Costner made corn fields famous in Field of Dreams. He looked kind of ‘epic’ wading into one. Thought we’d try it ourselves. The walk between properties is about two kilometers, or so. The temperature was reasonable. It was a good day to walk and work.

The 40 hectares still had the previous owner’s corn all over it but we wanted to have a look anyway. Pardon the pun, but walking through a 7 foot high corn field is like walking through a vegetative maze. Never ending uneven ground, little red ants making the most of our white skin, claustrophobia crept up on me on more than one occasion. I’m officially a mythbuster; no breeze blows in the middle of a corn field. The rustling of the leaves, that’s just an effect, ... a tease more like it. In February things will look totally different. Clear, cultivated, deep red soil raised in parallel mounds about a metre apart waiting for the potato saplings to be planted in the ground. Boundary posts will be set in the perimeter of the property and an area set aside for a timber barn to be built for the harvest in 12 months.

Mutant Tonkas

You’d think it was leftover from a Mad Max movie. Soft top truck. Now there’s a concept. They do the bulk of the work at harvest time. Bags and bags of produce are loaded on to the back of these iron horses. Soft roads, heavy trucks not a good mix. If you’ve ever felt your life was in a rut, you need to think again. These trucks make the mothers of all ruts.

Out in the district it seems like these mutant Tonkas are everywhere. They can be hired, if they’re not already busy and ... everyone is busy. You wouldn’t think finding one was so difficult. Like they’re big right? One of the biggest challenges in planting out 50 hectares is the availability of machinery. Trucks and tractors. If you own them, no problems.

If you rent them, ... happy headaches.