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Building Foundations for Climate-Smart Agriculture in Cambodia

Cambodia
Sustainable agriculture
08.07.2025
As Cambodia intensifies efforts toward meeting its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), one foundational piece is becoming clear: climate action in agriculture requires both innovation and understanding. Recognizing this, Swisscontact in Cambodia organized a focused capacity-building session on Carbon Finance and Agriculture on 27 May 2025 at its Phnom Penh office. The training was designed to build foundational knowledge around carbon markets and their application in the agriculture sector—an essential step for equipping stakeholders to design effective, scalable climate-smart interventions.
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Empowering stakeholders with carbon market literacy

Led by Mr. Pierre Antoine Vernet, Consultant and Project Coordinator of Swisscontact’s Dei Meas pilot, and Dr. Leng Vira, Soil Expert at the Department of Agricultural Land Resources Management (DALRM/GDA), the training gathered total participants of 16 from academia (Royal University of Phnom Penh), NGOs (Save the Children International, Nexus for development, Catholic Relief Services, and WAT4CAM), and the private sector (Husk Ventures Cambodia). The session introduced essential concepts of carbon finance—from the Kyoto Protocol to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement—and explored how voluntary and compliance-based carbon markets function globally.

Agriculture as a climate solution

Participants were introduced to climate-smart farming practices such as cover cropping, agroforestry, conservation agriculture, and Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) for rice production. These practices have the potential to increase carbon sequestration while reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, contributing to global mitigation efforts and creating new income streams for farmers through carbon credit generation.

However, the path is not without challenges. Trainers stressed the importance of technical assistance, calibrated Measurement-Reporting-Verification (MRV) systems, and accessible, fair incentives to support farmer participation. It was clear from the discussions that integrating carbon finance into agriculture would require both top-down policy coordination and bottom-up knowledge empowerment.

"This training is important as it provides a solid foundation for understanding carbon credits, bridging theoretical knowledge with the historical context of why carbon credits and their trading mechanisms emerged globally. Additionally, this training also showcases practical calculations and real-life applications. Overall, the training offers a strong basis for designing projects related to climate change mitigation."
Ms. Nara Noualyny, Deputy Team Leader of the WAT4CAM/TA-AGRI Project.
"It was great to see so much interest from partners in carbon finance and its potential application in agriculture. Carbon markets should be used as a tool to support farmers in their transition toward regenerative agriculture, but not as a sole objective to generate carbon credits."
Mr. Pierre-Antoine Vernet, Swisscontact’s Consultant and Project Coordinator of the Dei Meas pilot.

Next steps: Widening the circle

With positive feedback from participants, Swisscontact in Cambodia plans to roll out similar training sessions to reach more stakeholders, especially government officers and project developers. The long-term vision is to build a roadmap for Cambodia’s emerging carbon market, rooted in inclusive participation, sound science, and sustainable development goals.

By investing in foundational knowledge today, Swisscontact supports a climate-resilient Cambodia where carbon markets are not just a financial mechanism, but a driver of agricultural transformation, rural resilience, and global climate action.

The Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture (ISA) program is financed by the Happel Foundation, the Symphasis Foundation, the Leopold Bachmann Foundation, among other donors. It is part of the Swisscontact Development Programme, which is co-financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

2025 - 2028
Cambodia
Sustainable agriculture
Innovation for Sustainable Agriculture 
The project promotes appropriate technologies and extension services for a sustainable agricultural production. This leads to reduced negative impacts on the environment including an improved soil health that allows smallholder farmers to increase their productivity and income. 
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