Early this month we took an all-team trip out to Prey Veng province for the first time since March 2020. I think it’s very important for our short term volunteers in the city to understand what life is like for the majority of Cambodians and it means a lot to our Cambodian staff to see the work that MCC partners are doing in rural areas.

Our first stop was at the Organization to Develop Our Villages office in Mesang district to pick up Isaac, the SALT participant serving there, and learn a bit about his daily work there is like. Then we headed out to visit one of the families that ODOV is supporting.

The farm that Isaac choose to show us belongs to Mok Samun. She lives there with her elderly mother, her older sister, and her young daughter. Samun is a widow.

The farm is primarily run by Samun and her older sister, Pamoun, who is also single. I didn’t ask if Pamoun was also a widow, was never married, or if her husband disappeared. Samun’s 10 year old daughter, Phal Montha, helps around the farm but also studies and attends school. Samun’s elderly mother, Som Iem, also helps as she is able but isn’t able to do much manual labor.

Samun started working with ODOV in 2020. She joined the local Agricultural Cooperative and Vegetable Producer Group that ODOV had helped form. The Vegetable Producer Group sells produce collectively in order to increase bargaining power and get the best price for everyone. The Vegetable Producer Group fits within the Agricultural Cooperative. The Agricultural Cooperative conducts regular meetings to share best practices, sends village volunteers with technical expertise (trained by ODOV) to visit each member farm, and purchases agricultural inputs in bulk in order to get better prices for its members. The Agricultural Cooperative members also contribute to a rotating savings fund that they can borrow from in order to invest in their farming activities.

Over decades, ODOV has perfected a local fishpond model that captures overflow during the rainy season and stores water throughout the entirety of the dry season. This includes cover crops over the fishpond to prevent evaporation and feed the fish. This climate change resilient fishpond fits into ODOV’s larger cyclical farming model in which vegetable gardening, chicken raising, and the fishpond feed into each other.

ODOV dug the fishpond for Samun in March 2021 and she’s already had her first harvest from it. She showed some of the prahok that she made from the fish in her pond. Prahok is the fermented fish paste that serves as a base for Khmer cuisine and which traditionally serves as Cambodian’s primary source of calcium.

Samun’s farm was a fantastic one to showcase the various farming techniques that ODOV has been promoting. The fishpond, vegetable garden, organic compost pile, and chickens were all examples of best practices in action.

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—
    this is God, whose dwelling is holy.

Psalm 68:5 NLT

But it was also remarkable that this farm is run by a widow, her sister, and her 10 year old daughter. This defies stereotypes. These women farmers have taken all of the training ODOV has provided them and taken it farther than many of their peers with whole families.