Mrs. Ing Sarun grew the vegetables for business since 1990s, on 0.40 hectares land, producing around three tons per year. The main crops were pumpkin, tomato, winter melon, eggplant. The production costs reached around $500, gross income $1,875 and net profit $1,375 per year.
In May 2018, she became a member of the AIMS vegetable producer organization (PO) in Kampong Nong village, Kounsat commune, Teuk Chhou district, Kampot province. This PO has thirty-eight households’ members (22 female).
Mrs. Sarun has adopted a production and business model introduced by Kaksethan Lors Thmey (KLT), a private company contracted out by AIMS to introduce a production and business model as technical production training, demonstration, field day and support on the process of Value Chain Innovations Funds (VCIF-Win1) for growing vegetables in the net house.
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In 2021, she bought one net house of 250-square-meter size. Normally, she grows at least eight crop cycles per year. The quality of this net house can be operated for at least three years, costing $3,000. The purchase was made with her own funds of $2,000 and a grant from AIMS (VCIF-Win1) amounting to $1,000.
She started growing leafy vegetables aligned with the Good Agriculture Practice (GAP), like curly mustard and Chinese kale that met the market demand. In one crop cycle, she can produce 625 kilograms during a 30 to 35-day period (5,000 kg/year), in average selling price is $1 per kilogram. After deducting the depreciation cost $125 on the net house and production costs $55 per crop cycle (total = 1,000 + 440 = $1,440 per year), she gets net profit $3,560 per year.
Mrs. Ing Sarun is satisfied with the improvement of the vegetable business that improve the living conditions of her family. Besides, she has shared her good practice with the PO members for improving techniques of the vegetable production so that they are able to increase the quantity and quality of local vegetables to meet with the market’s requirement.
