Appeal for farmers to help Cambodia

Surplus machinery and components lying in paddocks throughout the north-west could have a second life following an appeal for donations to help an agricultural aid project in Cambodia.

As part of a research project with the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), NSW Agriculture scientists at Tamworth are aiming to introduce reduced and minimum tillage practices to upland areas.

But experiments by an agricultural engineering group at CARDI to compare conventional tillage with reduced and zero tillage treatments are proving difficult.

"The problem is Cambodian farmers don't have any no-till planters and all the reduced and zero tillage practices have to be hand sown," Director of the Tamworth Agricultural Institute Bob Martin said.

Dr Martin said more equipment was needed if Cambodian farmers were to have any hope of diversifying their crop production and improving their agricultural practices.

He also acknowledged the efforts of Tamworth man, Jeff Esdaile, who is coordinating the donations.

"We are not after any old piece of machinery but specifically need chisel ploughs, scarifiers, heavy duty cultivator, or no till tyne assemblies," Mr Esdaile said.

"Bolt-on types are sought as they can be easily fixed to locally manufactured three-point linkage frames."

Mr Esdaile has worked tirelessly over the past few months to gather equipment from local farmers, and the first shipment of donated equipment could be bound for Cambodia within a few weeks.

Until his recent retirement, Mr Esdaile was the Manager of the University of Sydney's Livingston Farm at Moree.

"So far Mr Esdaile has been able to secure donations of surplus no-till tyne assemblies from the Livingston Farm and a cone seeder mechanism, which was donated by Incitec/Pivot," Dr Martin said. 

"These important components will be shipped to Cambodia where they will be mounted on a no-till frame at CARDI and put to work immediately.

"The aim is to build a number of three-point linkage tyned ploughs that would be provided to farmers to enable them to do experiments."

The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, which has provided $1.7 million to the research project so far, will cover the cost of transporting equipment earmarked for the research all the way from the farmers' property to Cambodia.

Anyone interested in donating components for the research project should phone Jeff Esdaile on (02) 6760 8572, or NSW Agriculture's Tamworth Agricultural Institute on (02) 6763 1100.

Media contact: Dr Bob Martin, Institute Director, NSW Agriculture Tamworth, (02) 6763 1258

Issued by: Annette Cross, NSW Agriculture Tamworth, telephone (02) 6763 1243, mobile 0427 201 840

High resolution images are available from Annette Cross.