ANGKOR SALAD

The Angkor Salad project is funded by the Netherlands Space Office (NSO) and is focused on incorporating satellite-derived data to inform and improve agricultural production in selected developing countries. The overall aim of Angkor Salad is to reduce inputs, specifically water, while increasing productivity of vegetable production by approximately 20%. This is to be achieved through a commercial partnership with a leading input supply company in Cambodia, Angkor Green.

A client management and decision support tool is to be developed combining best practice vegetable production advice with near real-time information on soil moisture. It is envisioned that this tool will be commercially viable through the incorporation of package expenses into products bought by farmers or through a direct subscription model.

The World Vegetable Center’s role is to develop best practices within the guidelines of CamGap (the Cambodian version of Good Agriculture Practices (GAP) for horticulture) for a small selection of vegetables in the first phase and use that knowledge to scale out to a full set of vegetables important to Cambodian vegetable production over the full three years.

The initial design will be based on determining crop stages and providing specific advice for crop management, irrigation needs and fertilizer management for that stage. Irrigation schedules, for example, can be determined based on crop type, stage of the crop, soil characteristics such as soil moisture capacity, crop transpiration estimates, evaporation estimates, and weather forecasts from existing local weather forecast providers.

Result Summary

The project developed ‘Angkor SALAD’ web applications to provide web-based services to smallholder farmers on advice related to irrigation, fertilizer, crop planning, market information and compliance to Khmer Good Agricultural Practices. WorldVeg was responsible for developing vegetable production guidelines and crop decision-trees, and training the project technicians on crop production techniques.

The Angkor SALAD App is currently available widely in Cambodia. More than 10,000 smartphones have downloaded the App with approximately 3,700 active users on average. In particular, the number of active users declines during the hot, dry season (February to March) when farmers stop growing the vegetables, and when agricultural input prices are very high. To sustain the App post-project, ICCO is forming Angkor SALAD Social Enterprise as a business approach to manage the App’s sustainable use and implementation.