The local 'Bunong' market

-a revolution …

The Bunongs selling their fresh produce on the airstrip

Recently, Savy my translator told me that the Bunong people, who walk to Sen Monorom everyday to sell their fresh produce, have stopped selling them at the local market, at the ‘Bunong’s place’ that was built ‘exclusively’ for them.    

It was a place for the Bunong to sell there freshly, painstakingly, grown produce at a wholesale price to the Khmer buyers due to high demand.  It’s important to note, that the Khmer people preferred to buy the Bunong’s fresh produce from them, because not only is their produce cheap to bargain for a lower price, it is also freshly grown in Cambodia, unlike other vegetables that are grown and sold from the neighbouring countries such as Vietnam.  In turn, the wholesale buyers, the Khmer buyers, at the local market, sell the Bunong’s produce at a retail price, at a higher price.  The Bunong, aware of the situation, realized that they  too, could independently sell their own produce directly to the Khmer locals at a retail price.  As a result, they have since moved to a different location, away from the market, and have settled along the air strip to sell their goods, such as fresh sweet-scented lemon grass, sweet basil that’s used in traditional Cambodian cuisine and much more.   

A Bunong family walking to the airstrip to join the others

Ironically, elsewhere in Cambodia, although 80% of the country relies on agriculture, as a livelihood, poor farming infrastructure and competitive prices from neighbouring countries are holding back local produce from dominating the domestic agricultural market in Cambodia.  

There is good news however.  The Ministry of Commerce with improved farming infrastructure in mind,  with the help of several NGO programmes that were put in place in specific areas of Cambodia, are in the process of training farmers in organic production methods to support the nation’s farmers.   This is to encourage local famers to grow a variety of produce in order to enhance the agrarian nation’s initiatives.  Local attitude, as a result, is slowly changing, and more and more retail buyers are buying directly from the Cambodian farmers supporting their livelihood and their families.   In the case of the Bunong farmers, not only have they become an independent commercial industry in their own right, they can now begin to ‘comfortably’ support their families by what they grow and sell ‘freely’.  

More later :)