Community First Initiatives Inc.

Over the past five years, Community First has been developing an aquaponic solution for the forgotten rural communities of northwestern Cambodia. Aquaponics is a system of aquaculture in which the waste produced by farmed fish or other aquatic animals supplies nutrients for plants grown hydroponically, which in turn purifies the water. As a result, aquaponics provides three times the yields of conventional agriculture in addition to the fish it uses and is 80% more water-efficient.

Our objective is to help farmers in the drought-stricken area convert their small family farms into successful aquaponic small businesses.

With our goal being to bring aquaponic training and hardware to the most families where it is the most needed, our strategy involves the development of our farm school, our main training facility located in the heart of the villages where we work.

At the farm school, villagers can come and learn about aquaponics, and most importantly see it working to its full potential. This helps farmers envision what their farm could be and learn the skills necessary to stary using a small-scale system at home. After completing an introductory course, villagers become eligible to receive their own aquaponic learning unit at home. This stage of the program is co-financed by Rotary International 5300 FY2019-2020.

Once farmers are able to meet their subsistence needs, two additional levels of training are made available to them: (1) abundance training, followed by (2) small business level. These intermediate and advanced courses involve more technical training but also the soft skills needed to run a successful operation like cost and breakeven calcultaions.

We have a talented local team consisting of a botanist and aquaculture specialist both trainined in France and three you women that act as administrative support, liaison with the community and a trainer. In late 2019, we will be launching a "training of trainer" (ToT) program in order to develop the educational capacity of the farm school. We aim at three new trainers by the end of 2020.

Thus far, our organization has successfully conducted a pilot project with 10 families in the villages of Sen Sok community in drought-stricken northwestern Cambodia. This would not have been possible had Community First not established the first network of dee-water wells in the area, as there was no access to clean water before that. This foundational water access program gave the gift of clean water to over 10,000 people in 16 villages from 2009 to 2012.

Our training facility which we built in Sen Sok in 2009, has been completely overhauled and upgraded in order to provide all the necessary training on the aquaculture side of things. Concrete tanks and a commercial greenhouse have been established. A classroom and a workshop area will have a grand re-opening in 2020, just in time for a new class.

The next step is to train more trainers in order to give access to aquaponics to as many families as possible. In parallel, the objective of the farm school will be to develop local sales in order to breakeven at a local scale so as to ensure the stability of the project in the long run.