A BERKSHIRE charity is supporting growth in Cambodia– literally and figuratively, by funding agricultural initiatives
To Grow an Orchid, based in Pangbourne, is funding collaborative projects which encourage productivity in agricultural work through IT solutions.
Agriculture is a vital part of people’s daily lives in rural Cambodia, including in the Kampong Speu Province, around 100km west of the capital, Phnom Penh.
While cultivation of rice, green vegetables, and cashews are largely seasonal, yielding only one or two harvests a year, the region also sees the year-round production of mushrooms.
This includes the oyster mushroom, which, while providing a regular income due to it’s constant production, is still difficult to manage as a crop due to hot, windy, and changeable conditions in the region.
Currently, oyster mushrooms are cultivated manually with sprinkler systems which provide the very specific temperature and humidity conditions.
The project, however, will enable IT facilities and Agricultural facilities at the Kampong Speu Institute of Technology (KSIT) to collaborate.
IT students will build control systems, giving them vital programming and industry experience, which will form part of the research conducted by the Agronomy department, which studies crop growth.
The collaboration will then see the implementation of systems designed to automate the conditions needed for crops, which will be rolled out into nearby communities.
The project also includes the implementation of To grow an Orchid’s own cloud technology to help manage data from the research, as power and internet outages are common in the region.
As well as this, the project brought a basic IT course to KSIT for the benefit all students through education on how to use Google services and basic information on social media and internet safety.
To Grow an Orchid has been working to raise levels of IT education and support students in rural Cambodia since its founding by Dave Hunt in 2019.
If the current project is a success, the charity is seeking to work on further collaborative projects next year.
More information about how To grow an Orchid supports students in Cambodia is available via: togrowanorchid.org
