The Rise of Rice

Cambodians are fantastically entrepreneurial and with whatever funds that they can gather, I see a lot of my neighbours and friends establish micro business start ups.

This young guy has recently set up his mobile stand outside my building and sells delicious sticky rice desserts of many varieties. They cost as little as 500 riel (12.5 cents) for a small bag. The rice has been slow cooked over a coal fire in coconut milk, palm sugar and sesame seeds with fresh shredded coconut on top; some desserts are wrapped intricately in banana leaves.

Cambodia's Rumduol, a long grain aromatic rice won top place in the The Rice Traders' World's Best Rice competition for 3 consecutive years from 2012-2014.

Since then, Rumduol has lost its prized position, first in 2015 to rice grown in California called Calrose and then this past year to Thailand's Hom Mali, a jasmine rice, but It remains in the top 3 in the world.

China is the biggest buyer of Cambodian rice followed by France and Poland. Exports are made up of Rumduol, jasmine and white rice and are steadily increasing. They now add up to 550,000 tonnes per year although the government's target figure is 1 million tonnes. The country faces tough competition from high quality rice grown in neighbouring Thailand and Viet Nam.

A shortage of capital, high electricity and transportation costs, a lack of technical expertise and irrigation systems are hampering Cambodian farmers' efforts towards expansion and sustainability. Cheap development loans are not readily available to the local farmers. Access to low interest capital would give a much needed boost to the growers' livelihoods as well as the agricultural sector. It would go some way to increase the quality and also the yield of Cambodian rice and make it more competitive in an international market where free trade agreements are being signed by countries like Viet Nam.

I have eaten large quantities of rice and become acquainted with many variations of the grain and in more ways during the 3 years that I've lived in Cambodia than my entire lifetime prior to 2014. I've eaten rice steamed, fried, baked in banana leaves, fish and vegetables crumbed in rice flour and deep fried, drunk rice milk, eaten rice pancakes & rice desserts and used cleansing rice body scrubs.

Cambodians love eating rice with most meals and large quantities of it which means that diabetes is on the rise. Approximately 5-10% of adults are apparently diabetic; many remain undiagnosed.

White rice elevates blood sugar rapidly. Brown rice is the better alternative, but is grown in smaller volumes and because of that, is more expensive.

Diabetes is a fast growing problem in poorer nations where health systems tend not to be set up for early detection and a lack of affordability means imbalanced nutrition.