Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Dith Tina has called for agricultural development plans to incorporate a greater focus on horticulture using net houses and water up to standards, as well as a nationwide pure-seed-rice system for planting.

The minister made the remarks during a February 17 meeting to review work in the crop segment in 2022 and set the work direction for this year, held at the agriculture ministry’s General Directorate of Agriculture (GDA).

“Horticulture” is a branch of agriculture that generally deals with the intensive commercial cultivation of high-value plants for food, medicinal ingredients or ornamental purposes. Horticulture farming as a rule sits between domestic gardening and field agriculture, in terms of scale.

Tina asked officials to go the extra mile to guide farmers towards modern farming geared towards exports characterised by high degrees of sustainability and progressiveness, highlighting the importance of private sector involvement, the ministry said in a statement later that day.

The minister also called for increased attention to issues relating to crop seeds, markets, fertilisers, pesticides and manpower, so as to ensure quality, safety, domestic market price stability, and potentially other benefits for producers.

“In addition, the minister would like to see … a nationwide pure-seed-rice system with coherent certification that can produce genuine seed rice anywhere [and] an effective human resource development system,” the statement said.