Sophon

Loan description:

Sophon Phy is 39 years old and married with five children, who are aged between six and 24 years old. Her two younger children are currently at school and her three elder children have their own jobs and live separately. Sophon and her family live in Slab Pang village, which is in Banon district, Battambang province. Sophon and her husband, Song Phy, are farmers and presently they farm five hectares of rice paddy. The yield gives them around two and a half tonnes per hectare and they stock one tonne of this for their own consumption and sell the remainder to a local miller. Aside from farming their own rice paddy, they also rent two more hectares of land from other villagers, which costs them around $100 per hectare. To increase their daily income, Sophon and her husband grow sesame on their rented land. As their funds are currently limited, they have borrowed a loan in order to help cover the renting cost and to buy insecticide and commercial fertiliser. They will also use a part of the loan to cover the cost of ploughing. They expect to repay this loan over nine months. In the future they plan to start raising pigs from their home too.