A person with a purpose

Even as a child, Pyseth Meas knew what he wanted to be when he grew up—he was taught by his parents to be useful to the community. “All of my life, I’ve wanted to do something meaningful for the people of Cambodia, especially the farmers, because we rely on rice as our staple food and main source of income,” he says. Now, as one of the few postharvest technology experts in Cambodia—in fact, the first trained in this field—Dr. Meas is seeing his dreams come to life.

Dr. Meas works with the IRRC in a project with the Asian Development Bank and the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction. He is in charge of harvesting, drying, storage, and milling activities in Cambodia and Vietnam. (Photo by T. Ryan)

Growing up on a rice farm with a father who was a government official, he learned the best from both worlds: managing field operations and solving farming problems. He also observed his mother, who had problems then in selling milled rice to consumers and traders. His early exposure to postharvest problems encouraged him to pursue a career in postharvest technology.

With his first scholarship from the Czechoslovak government, Dr. Meas received his MS degree in agricultural mechanization in 1987 from the University of Agriculture in Nitra, Czechoslovakia. He then worked as vice-head of the project management office of the Department of Agricultural Engineering in Cambodia’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries from 1987 to 2000. He received a second scholarship from the New Zealand government and earned another MS degree in postharvest technology in 1999 from Massey University in Palmerston North, New Zealand. After his MS study, he served as head of the agricultural engineering program and as deputy director of the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) and as a member of its board of directors from 1999 to 2003. With another scholarship co-funded by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the New Zealand government, he finished his PhD in agricultural engineering in 2006 at Massey University, specializing in postharvest technology for rice. Now, Dr. Meas has his hands full as CARDI deputy director and as an IRRI consultant on postharvest technology.

Dr. Meas works with the Irrigated Rice Research Consortium (IRRC) Postproduction Work Group in a project with the Asian Development Bank and the Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction. The project aims to demonstrate in eight villages in Cambodia that improved harvesting, drying, storage, and milling can help farmers increase income from their rice harvest and improve the quality of grain and seed throughout the postharvest chain. (See Cambodia’s continuing postharvest quest in RIPPLE, Vol. 2, No. 4.) In addition, he is also in charge of the project’s activities in Vietnam.

His days are mostly spent out in the field, conducting training courses and farm machinery demonstrations to hundreds of agricultural researchers, extension workers, managers, and farmers. He finds this part of his work gratifying and most challenging as well. “Not many people in Cambodia have been trained in postharvest technology,” Dr. Meas explains. “Bringing the technology to farmers is hard because there are not enough human resources.” He hopes to be able to help reduce postharvest losses such as grain shattering and deterioration of grain and seed quality.

He also puts his good command of English to use by translating documents into Khmer, his native tongue. He contributes these documents to universities in his country. Studying in Czechoslovakia motivated him to become fluent in its language and learn English as well. He even became a translator for Cambodia’s Ministry of Education in 1987. But he proudly reveals that his children, Kanika, 17, Sakan, 15, and Sakun, 12, are better English speakers because they stayed with him in New Zealand during his graduate studies.

His childhood dream to help his country drives Dr. Meas to work hard; even his rest time is spent translating materials. “In Cambodia, more than 85% of the people are rice farmers,” he says. “I hope that they recognize and accept that we have postharvest problems, and that they will work with me to try to do something about them.”

Trina Mendoza (t.mendoza@cgiar.org)

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