Cambodia's coastal zones are highly dependent on climate and weather, making them susceptible to climate change and causing farmers’ livelihoods to be more vulnerable compared to urban residents. Since climate issues already impact the agricultural sector in Cambodia, this paper aims to assess the impact of disasters in the context of climate change, which impacts household agricultural production, and to identify the existing community's capacity to respond and adapt to climate change and climate variability in the coastal zones of Cambodia. A survey was conducted in the agricultural coastal zone provinces of Cambodia. Data was analysed using SPSS software. The survey data demonstrates that disasters and climate change, particularly drought and floods, significantly impact the economic status of the interviewed households. The proportion of households experiencing disasters and climate change impacts has increased gradually. Regarding household capacity to respond and adapt to disasters and climate change, households in the target area mainly focused on resilient farming techniques for rice crop production rather than other farming activities, and most of the practices were targeted to adaptation in the occurrence of droughts. The issue of receiving Early Warning Signs (EWS) information was addressed and 37% of the respondents reported “no source of climate information”. Therefore, it is recommended to strengthen the capacity of local people in the coastal areas of Cambodia in responding to climate change.

Production increases in lowland rice-based systems of Southeast Asia will not be possible without the addition of nutrients. Recent productivity gains were largely based on increasing the use efficiency of the applied nutrients through integrated and site-specific approaches. The adoption of such strategies has evolved differentially in the various country. We need to understand such recent trends, their driving forces, and their effectiveness to harness or leverage them for regional food security and sustainable development. To gain this understanding, we analyzed changes in fertility-related agronomic practices in six representative rice-based production systems of Southeast Asia (three favorable and three marginal sites). We implemented a diachronic survey (comparing the years 2000 and 2018) combined with field sampling and measurements in 1024 rice-producing households and, where applicable, in both dry and wet seasons (3638 complete data sets). We observed that soil fertility management followed similar trends across sites. However, the timing and the extent of changes were location specific, and differed primarily by the favorability/marginality of the site, and farmers’ capability to adopt technological innovations. The irrigated rice double cropping benefitted most from recent technology innovations (hybrid seeds, farm machinery), accelerating the adoption of improved fertility management practices to an aggregated level of up to 75% (mean across the six soil fertility-related management practices) at favorable sites. Most prominent were multiple splitting of mineral N and the application of mineral fertilizers other than N (P, K, Zn). At marginal sites, aggregate changes toward intensification were rather low with 35–55%, and farmers tended to intensify the non-rice component in the system by applying mineral fertilizers and organic amendments to dry season upland crops. A balanced use of nutrients will require the targeting of options to specific extrapolation domains (social-ecological target environments) based on site attributes and farmers’ resource endowment.

The genus Encyclometra is one of the two genera in family Encyclometridae, known for parasitising the oesophagus, stomach and intestine of snakes. Among Encyclometra, the species present are: Encyclometra colubrimurorum, Encyclometra japonica, Encyclometra asymmetrica and Encyclometra bungara. Species discrimination within Encyclometra has predominantly relied on morphological differences, such as the length of the caeca and the position of the testes. Morphological overlaps exist among these species making species discrimination challenging. Additionally, the use of molecular information has been limited for Encyclometra. To determine the Encyclometra species infecting Enhydris enhydris from Thailand and Cambodia, morphological and molecular identification was conducted. Morphological characters and measurements were obtained from 30 Encyclometra adults, and they were compared with previous studies of other Encyclometra species. Novel sequences of E. bungara were generated using the nuclear 18S and 28S ribosomal RNA genes, and the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene. Our results revealed that the specimens could be morphologically identified as E. bungara, with support from molecular information obtained from the phylogenies of the 3 genetic markers employed. Molecular analysis showed that the Encyclometra specimens were distinct from E. colubrimurorum and E. japonica. Through morphological and molecular identification of the Encyclometra specimens found in E. enhydris from Thailand and Cambodia, we describe and provide a record of E. bungara in a new host and new locality. Additionally, novel molecular sequences were generated, revealing the phylogenetic position of E. bungara within the superfamily Gorgoderoidea.

Background: This study aimed to determine the prevalence and mean infection intensity of zoonotic foodborne trematodes (FBT) in small indigenous species (SIS) fish hosts. Materials and Methods: A total of 8630 specimens of unknown origin were collected from the markets in Phnom Penh City. Fish were identified, weighed, and separated into 20 g subsamples for each fish species, and were examined using the artificial digestion method. A total of 10 species of FBT were detected in 11 species of fish out of the 23 species of fish in the total sample. Results: All infected FBT species were intestinal flukes. No liver flukes were found. The overall prevalence of FBT infection was 29.3% ± 5.3%, and the mean intensity was 0.85 ± 1.89 metacercariae (Mc)/g. The highest FBT prevalence was observed for Isthmiophora hortensis (10.7%) and Centrocestus formosanus (7.9%). Other species identified were Diplostomum spp., Echinochasmus japonicus, Echinostoma revolutum, Echinostoma sudanense, Haplorchis taichui, Haplorchis pumilio Heterophyes spp., and Procerovum varium. The highest mean intensity was found for Diplostomum spp. (1.75 ± 3.03 Mc/g). Trichopsis vittata was one of the main species constituting the SIS in urban markets (31.72%) and showed the highest prevalence of FBT (75.0%). In addition, T. vittata had the highest diversity of intestinal flukes compared with other fish species. Amblypharyngodon chulabhornae showed the highest mean intensity. but low diversity (only two species) and low prevalence. Conclusions: T. vittata could be considered a potential indicator for targeted monitoring of FBT intestinal flukes, but A. chulabhornae could also be considered for quantitative studies considering its high mean intensity.

This study analyzed land use and land cover (LULC) change from 1998 to 2018 in Battambang, Cambodia, and determined factors and constraints affecting agricultural production. Landsat satellite images in 1998, 2008, and 2018 were used to identify the changes in LULC. In combination, a social survey was conducted in August 2021 using purposive sampling, selecting a total sample of 200 from two wealth classes: the poor (65) and the better off (135) based on the Cambodia poverty assessment by the World Bank, from uplands to lowlands of Battambang Province, Cambodia. Household characteristics, farm size, and constraints were compared between the classes. T-tests, the analysis of variance (ANOVA), and Likert scale analysis were adopted using the R Program and RStudio, while Pearson's correlation test was used to determine the factors affecting agricultural land. The results show that between 1998 and 2018, the forest cover decreased by 79%. In contrast, agricultural land expansion was the highest (54%). The average household size and age of the respondents were 5.0 persons/household and 50.1 years, respectively. Of all the interviewees, about 80% attended no higher than primary school. The total farm size of the better-off (7.0 ha/household) was larger than that of the poor (5.2 ha/household). The population growth, machinery use, and improved infrastructure were found to be positive and strongly related to agricultural land use. The highest constraints of the poor and the better-off households were the same: chemical fertilizer use. Then, drought and flooding were also challenges for all. In terms of land, credit, and labor, they were not the main constraints. Thus, it is recommended that the involvement of interdisciplinary stakeholders and policy frameworks is really important from both biophysical and social perspectives.

Sieng is an ethnic fermented soybean food of Cambodia. No information on microbial community structures and their roles in health benefits of sieng is available till date. Hence, we aimed to profile the microbial community structures, to infer predictive functionalities and to recover the high-quality metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs). Bacillus subtilis was the most abundant species in sieng, followed by Tetragenococcus halophilus, Enterococcus sp., Brevibacillus borstelensis, B. cereus, B. glycinifermentans, Halanaerobium praevalens, Mammaliicoccus sciuri, Staphylococcus gallinarum, Enterococcus faecium, B. cytotoxicus, Aneurinibacillus migulanus, B. thermoamylovorans, Paenibacillus dendritiformis and B. velezensis. Predictive functional profiles of sieng revealed several KEGG pathways and detection of CRISPR-Cas proteins. Six high-quality MAGs were recovered and identified as Bacillus subtilis, B. velezensis, B. glycinifermentans, B. borstelensis, B. thermoamylovorans and Ligilactobacillus acidipiscis. Genome annotation of recovered genomes showed biomarker genes for encoding several functional properties. Comparative analysis of previously reported microbiota in similar Asian sticky fermented soybean foods of other countries viz. Kinema of India, Nepal and Bhutan, pe poke of Myanmar and cheonggukjang of Korea with sieng was also studied. The PCoA plot showed a discrete variation between sieng and metagenomes of other similar fermented soybean foods, based on species level. However, sieng metagenome recorded the presence of halophilic bacterial species in higher abundance unlike other fermented soybean products. The present work is the first report on microbial community structure, and metagenome-assembled genomes of sieng.

Cucumber (Cucumis sativus L.) is a tropical vegetable and a source of vitamins such as K, C, and B. It is commonly grown and sold for daily consumption, but picking the right fruit size is more profitable. Therefore, a method for estimating the fruit weight is highly recommended. This paper aimed to determine the dimensions of cucumber fruit based on its usual harvesting size and to establish a model to show the relationship between fruit weight, fruit length, and fruit diameter. Cucumber was planted in the experimental field belonging to the Faculty of Agricultural Biosystems Engineering, Royal University of Agriculture, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, from January to June 2022. In the study, 48 market-size fruits were randomly selected from the plots to measure their weight, length, and diameter. The result shows that fruit length and fruit diameter had a positive relationship (P < 0.001; R = 0.70). Fruit weight was 3.38 fruit length × fruit diameter (P <0.001; R = 0.95). Nevertheless, L/D ratio negatively affected fruit weight, when it exceeded 3:1. Fruit weight was greater than 100 g when fruit diameter was over 4 cm and fruit length was over 10 cm. Therefore, when picking cucumber fruits, one must consider fruit length and diameter to be profitable. Further studies will focus on measuring cucumber fruit already available on the market to understand more about actual consumer preferences.

Improving food safety often requires individuals or groups to adopt new food safety behaviors. Understanding individuals’ perceptions of food safety is an important step in creating programs that enable the adoption of such behaviors. To inform the design of food safety programs in Cambodia, this study measured perceptions of vegetable safety among vegetable growers (n = 69; Battambang, Siem Reap) and vendors (n = 31; Phnom Penh) involved in Cambodian informal vegetable markets using a quantitative questionnaire. The majority of respondents (≥ 62.7%, lower bounds of 95% confidence intervals at least 46.2%) across all groups (growers and vendors) were at least “moderately concerned” (scale: “extremely concerned,” “moderately concerned,” “slightly concerned,” “not concerned at all”) about the safety of vegetables sold in Cambodia. However, the mean estimated probability of respondents reporting that chemical contamination was of greater concern than microbial contamination was 84.9% [76.0, 90.9]%. Most respondents reported familiarity with the health effects of consuming chemically (71.4% [61.5, 79.6]%) or microbially (57.3% [47.2, 66.9]%) contaminated vegetables. However, less than half (between 7.3% and 48.4%) of all respondents provided a commonly recognized example of such health effects. Across all groups, respondents most frequently perceived contamination of vegetables as occurring primarily “at the farm” (≥ 76.7%, lower bounds of 95% confidence intervals at least 61.5%, and ≥ 39.3%, lower bounds of 95% confidence intervals at least 21.2%, respectively). Additionally, most respondents (≥ 51.6%, lower bounds of 95% confidence intervals at least 34.0%) perceived “vegetable farmers” as primarily responsible for preventing chemical contamination. Perceptions of responsibility for preventing microbial contamination varied across groups (p = 0.02). Of the vendors in Phnom Penh, growers in Battambang, and growers in Siem Reap involved in this research, 22.6%, 39.0%, and 53.6%, respectively, described at least one commonly accepted contamination prevention practice. These results suggest that food safety programs for each of the described groups should include efforts to increase participants’ understanding of the health impacts of consuming contaminated vegetables. However, specific emphasis should be placed on increasing awareness on the health impacts of consuming vegetables contaminated with microbial pathogens as respondents were generally less aware and concerned with microbial vs. chemical contamination of vegetables. Additionally, programs targeting vegetable growers could leverage growers’ sense of personal responsibility for both contamination and contamination prevention, while programs for vegetable vendors may need to emphasize the importance of vendors in ensuring vegetable safety.