Thanks to a collaborative project with Sala Baï partner organisations, this Hotel & Restaurant School provides its students with the keys to a better understanding of the environment. Here’s an illustration where you can see the budding chefs learning about sustainable agriculture with AgriSud International.
Sala Baï provides students with a comprehensive education and raises their awareness about the major challenges they will encounter in the future: environment, responsible tourism, oral expression, personal development, etc.
For the cooking students, their professional training would be incomplete if they didn’t know the different varieties and origins of the fruits and vegetables that they use on a daily basis. This is what AgriSud International focuses on in its weekly sessions with the cooking students, to raise their awareness of agro-ecology and establish sustainable links with local producers. The students combine theory with practice by cultivating the vegetable patch and peppertree at the bottom of the garden of the Sala Baï training hotel under the supervision of experts from AgriSud International.
After several weeks of vegetable-growing workshops, the cooking students and their classmates went on a visit to producers of the Green Farmers from Here network, to which AgriSud International provides technical support in the Prasat Bakong region. The main aims of this visit to these farms, which is part of the programme “My food, my health”, were to introduce students and teachers to ecological techniques for sustainable agriculture.
Screenshot from AgriSud International video.
Cambodia currently imports a lot of fruits and vegetables, estimated by the government at around 500 to 600 tonnes a year. However, the Ministry of Agriculture wishes to reverse this trend and reduce imports in favour of healthy local production.
Imports from neighbouring countries and other provinces remain the main source of fruits and vegetables in the Siem Reap province. According to AgriSud International, 20 to 50% of fruits and vegetables sold at Siem Reap markets are produced locally. However, agricultural production is a fact given that nearly 75% of the active population in Cambodia is involved in agriculture. But it remains highly seasonal, not very diversified and carried out on numerous very small holdings.
ural production and to raise their awareness of the challenges faced by vegetable growers in Cambodia. Seeking to support local production, the Sala Baï training restaurant regularly sources seasonal vegetables from the Green Farmers from Here network.
