National Conference on “One Village, One Product” Movement
5 June 2007, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Statement by
APO Secretary-General Shigeo Takenaka
Samdech Hun Sen Prime Minister and Chairman of Cambodian OVOP committee, Excellencies, Lok Chumteav, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am very pleased to attend the National Conference on the OVOP Movement in Cambodia, which the Asian Productivity Organization has the honor of sponsoring, and to address such distinguished guests and participants from all over the country. The purpose of this Conference is to enable our Cambodian friends to finalize the strategy and action plan for accelerating the OVOP movement in the country by sharing successful model cases in Japan and Thailand.
What is OVOP? And why has it attracted so many rural communities in Asia? This movement officially started in Oita Prefecture, Japan, as a way to revitalize rural communities. In the 1960s and 1970s, the GDP of Oita prefecture was at the bottom of the ladder in Japan. Traditional industries were stagnating with little hope of attracting new customers.
But this stagnation was challenged by a group of ingenious community leaders around the prefecture who started experimenting with the concept of OVOP. Let me introduce the case of the Oyama town. The town is small, in a mountainous area, and like many communities in the prefecture, isolated from the rest of the prefecture by mountain ridges and rivers. It has little arable land for rice farming and few pastures for cattle raising. Moreover, with more and more young people leaving Oyama for job opportunities elsewhere, the population was growing older every year.
How could people earn livelihoods under these conditions? After much trial and error, the community leaders of Oyama came to the conclusion that the answer lay in cultivating fruit that grew naturally in the hills in their region. Although fruit growing demands careful and constant attention, it does not require heavy physical labor of young farmers like livestock farming. With proper care, profitability per unit of land for fruit growing is higher than that for rice growing.
The fruit they selected to revive their community are plums and chestnuts, two fruit they were most familiar with, and started planting them systematically. The slogan “Let’s plant plums and chestnuts and go to Hawaii” was used widely in posters and recited in public meetings. Their efforts did not stop at simply growing the fruit. They started processing them into jam, pickles, and juice, and eventually ended up producing nearly 100 agricultural products.
Considerable efforts were also devoted to marketing. The township opened up satellite shops in neighboring cities, where farmers delivered their products every morning. Oyama residents then began operating restaurants serving local cuisine cooked by the farmers’ wives.
In this way, they learned how to make a living without abandoning their home town. One of the poorest towns in Japan became one of the richest rural communities. In fact, now 70% of the Oyama residents have passports and enjoy traveling abroad on a regular basis.
The success of Oyama spread first to other rural communities in Oita prefecture and then to other prefectures in Japan. Later, the message went beyond national boundaries and reached Thailand, where the original model was modified to suit local conditions and is called the “One Tambon, One Product” movement. Now the time has come for Cambodia to launch its OVOP movement in a big way.
I would like to mention here some of the factors essential for a successful OVOP movement. First of all, villagers must play a leading role in the development of products marketable outside the village. More than anyone else, they know the village’s history, culture, natural conditions, and comparative advantages. Only by taking all these factors into account can they develop products that are both unique and profitable.
Second, local authorities can help villagers by improving transportation facilities or developing processing or marketing technologies. Finally, the central government may be able to assist them by the same means or by providing financial assistance or organizing market research or trade exhibitions.
With those factors working together, I am sure in the long run you will get a positive and tangible result. The APO is happy to continue cooperation so that every rural community in Cambodia will find a way to stand on its own feet economically. And the majority of its people will become so well-off that they can enjoy trips abroad like the Oyama villagers.
Before concluding my short remarks, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Prime Minister Hun Sen of the Royal Government of Cambodia for this gracious presence. I also would like to pay tribute to H.E. Son Koun Thor, the Secretary General of the Cambodian OVOP National Committee and Mr. Yea Bunna, Head of the NPCC for the excellent arrangements made for this conference, and finally I wish to thank the Japanese Government for the financial support without which this conference is not possible.
Thank you.
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