RiceGX-SATREPS

On April 22, 2025, the RiceGX-SATREPS Project held its 3rd Farmers Workshop in Pursat Province to establish Cambodia’s first Farmers Water User Sub-Group (FWUSG) under the existing FWUC framework. The workshop brought together 50 participants including local farmers and officials from PDAFF, PDWRAM, RUA, and Japanese experts. Key topics included FWUSG structure, six-block irrigation rotation, and leadership selection. The group agreed to nominate two representatives from each village in the 60-hectare model site. This initiative supports intermittent irrigation - a method that reduces methane emissions and promotes sustainable rice farming. The project is implemented in collaboration with JICA, RUA, ITC, and other partners.

 

On April 25 and 28, 2025, the RiceGX-SATREPS Project held workshops on ICT decision support applications for counterparts at the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA) and in the ICT sector, focusing on the utilization and maintenance of ICT-based decision support systems.

At the pilot site in Damnak Ampil District, Pursat Province, real-time environmental data collection began in December 2024 using various sensors, including soil moisture and EC sensors, soil temperature sensors, air temperature and humidity sensors, solar radiation sensors, and water level sensors. The workshops included discussions on using an ICT-based decision support application designed to notify farmers of optimal irrigation and drainage timing based on predicted rice growth.

To effectively utilize this application, it is essential to collect real-time farming information directly from the field. Discussions also covered future plans for data collection, equipment management, and the use of disease alert systems such as rice blast warnings. Activity plans for the upcoming workshop were also presented.

On 23-24 April 2025, the RiceGX-SATREPS project held a training workshop for the usage of gas chromatograph (GC) at the Royal University of Agriculture (RUA), Phnom Penh. The project introduced a GC equipped with an autosampler to the RUA and is planning to use it for efficient analysis of greenhouse gas concentrations in monitoring study and carbon credit projects. The trainees comprehensively learnt the basic usage of GC through a lecture on GC detection principles, etc., practice to start up GC and to use software for data processing. The project aims to develop specialists for GC analysis through practical training.

Exercise in gas injection to glass vial

 Workshop participants

From February 24 to 27, we installed 12 water level monitoring systems at key locations, including six in paddy fields (one per irrigation rotation block), in the main canal, in the secondary canal, three (3) in the tertiary canals, and in the drainage canal. This system enables real-time sharing of water level data via through the cloud.

On December 12, 2024, the second workshop focused on the “Water Management System” was held at the Pursat Provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (PDAFF), bringing together farmers, the Farmers Water User Group (FWUG), and stakeholders from the RiceGX-SATREPS project.

On September 27, 2024, an international workshop was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, as part of the SATREPS project that commenced in April of this year, aiming to reduce methane emissions from rice paddies through intermittent irrigation.

On Thursday, September 26, 2024, the Japan International Research Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) held a ceremony in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, to launch the "Paddy Methane Emission Reduction Project" under the SATREPS framework.

On July 31, 2024, a kick-off meeting and Farmer Water Users Community (FWUC) workshop were held in Pursat Province, Cambodia, for the SATREPS project, which began in April this year, aiming to reduce methane emissions from paddy rice fields.

A JIRCAS-led project adopted in FY2023 under the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) program jointly implemented by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been officially launched with the conclusion of the Record of Discussions (R/D) with the counterpart country, signaling the start of formal joint research.