Organisational Baseline Study: Overview Report for Rohal Suong, Cambodia (KHM01)

This report covers the Organisational Baseline Study (OBS) for the Rohal Suong, a CCAFS climate-smart village in Cambodia. During November 2014 interviews were conducted with five organisations working or collaborating with farmers and/or the community in Rohal Suong village, Eak Phnom district and Battambang province. Rohal Soung is an old village and covered largely by flooded forest before the 1990s, the flooded forest provided high value benefits to environment as well as to local villagers. Flooded forest provided a good habitat and feeds to fish, water births and retails; those fish and wild & water animals were caught by villagers for household consumption. The flooded forests, however, were degraded rapidly as a result of agricultural expansions and high demands of fired wood of flooded tree. The grass lands were also converted to rice field over last 10 years; some parts, however, are kept as forage source for their cattle. This OBS report supplements the quantitative household baseline surveys and the qualitative village baseline studies at the same location. The objectives of the organisational baseline study are to: Provide indicators to monitor changes in behaviours and practices of locally relevant organisations that have climate change related activities in Battambang over time Understand the provision of information/services at the local level that informs farmers’ decision making about their livelihood strategies in response to climate chang

Village Baseline Study: Site Analysis Report for Rohal Suong village Aek Phnom district, Battambang province, Cambodia (CA01)

This report presents findings from a village baseline study conducted in Rohal Suong village in Cambodia. Findings have been gathered from focus group discussions and participatory resource mapping with community members in Rohal Suong. The site analysis is part of the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture, and Food Security (CCAFS) Baseline Survey work and provides information on community resources, the organizational landscape, and information networks at the village level. These indicators will be monitored over time and compared across other village sites to assess changes in food security and natural resource management. The baseline study shows that Rohal Suong is endowed with several types of natural resources, with little farm system diversification and livelihoods, but good access to physical and institutional infrastructure. When it comes to networks of information, the findings show that people receive and access a variety of community-level information, as more than 60% of the households can access a TV and/or radio. However, most of the accessed information does not necessarily relate to agriculture, weather, climate and/or environmental changes. The main challenges include deteriorating natural resources, high input costs on the farm with low production profitability. The community also lacks understanding of how to adapt their agriculture practices to the now increasingly variable seasonal cycle of flooding and drought. The community has identified irrigation water management and farm trainings as priorities for increasing agriculture productivity and profitability in the village