E-commerce a powerful untapped driver of rural agriculture

The Phnom Penh Post via Asia News Network

16:09 JST, April 13, 2022

The increasing integration of rural agriculture communities and resources into the e-commerce world has become a new driving force to raise domestic incomes, stimulate economic growth and spur domestic agricultural production, industry insiders have said.

Mak Chamroeun, chairman of value chain management company AgriBee (Cambodia) PLC, told The Post that the development of e-commerce in agriculture would be “necessary” to empower and expand the sector.

He explained that a recent study had found that about 80% of the more than 3 million farmers living in relatively populated areas had significantly limited knowledge of electronic technology.

Yang Saing Koma, a popular agricultural expert among farmers, highlighted the benefit of technological advances, but stressed that consumers and especially growers must capitalize on the opportunities and trends that emerge as a result, to ensure that agriculture can keep pace with other emerging sectors that have logged rapid growth propelled by e-commerce.

“Most of us Cambodians have smartphones in our hands, but rarely do we put them to work for our advantage.

“For instance, farmers with smartphones should learn more about how to search for market information and communicate when it comes to selling agricultural products — that’ll help save them loads of time. But we’ve seen that their understanding today is still limited,” he said.