Siem Reap - Cambodia The Lotus Farm Presentation Feature : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kv5dcuzychc (film duration 1,23 ) The Lotus Farm, the first of its kind in the world Open daily from 10am to 6pm - Phnom Krom Road Free guided tour 1
CONTENTS I. The Samatoa Project, from natural fibers to haute couture II. The Lotus Farm, a lotus fabric making workshop 1. Presentation 2. The production process a. Lotus harvesting b. The spinning stage, a crucial step c. The weaving stage d. A fabric with outstanding properties e. Putting lotus waste to good use III. IV. Press review Figures, Eco-Fibers projects / Lotus Farm 1. Figures 2. Development V. Cambodia at a glance VI. Contacts 2
I. The Samatoa Project From natural fibers to haute couture Founded in 2003, Samatoa is an ecological and sustainable textile cooperative located in Siem Reap, Cambodia. From its beginnings, Samatoa s founding project has never changed: to provide optimum satisfaction to customers and to offer the highest quality products while respecting the social and environmental values of sustainable development. The heart of Samatoa s expertise lies in its workshops where farmers, spinners, weavers, tailors and partners share identical ambitions. Awen Delaval, Director of Samatoa: Samatoa s most remarkable achievements have been to create a 100% ecological fabric made in Cambodia and to have contributed successfully to bringing together some of the world s poorest people with wealthy customers. Samatoa has undertaken three successful projects: Sam Couture is an equal-opportunity sewing shop that aims at helping Cambodian women in a precarious situation achieve a higher standard of living while giving them a sustainable integration into the world of work. Samatoa Brand provides international wholesellers with its own ready-to-wear fashion collections; it also retails products directly via a made to measure service to individual customers at its Siem Reap shop. Eco Fibers is a cooperative that aims at producing a unique range of exclusive natural fabrics made from natural silk, lotus fibers, kapok, and biological cotton. Located near Battambang on the banks of Kamping Poy Lake, its main workshop employs 40 people. Samatoa was the recipient of the UNESCO Award of Excellence in Southeast Asia in November 2012 acknowledging the quality of a sarong made from lotus and natural silk. The export of lotus fabric has been so successful that it has encouraged Samatoa to develop the activity of Eco- Fibers further. In this perspective, a second workshop was opened in November 2013 in Siem Reap: THE LOTUS FARM. 3
II. The Lotus Farm A lotus fabric making workshop 1. Presentation Because of the ever-increasing demand for lotus fabric, Samatoa opened a second workshop near Phnom Krom in Siem Reap in November 2013: the Lotus Farm. On its premises, lotus flowers are harvested in a 20-hectare lake. This workshop is the first of its kind, both in Cambodia and in the world. Its objective is to present in a detailed and ludic way the unique process by which the planet s most ecological fabric is made: lotus fabric. One of Samatoa s goals is to create a bridge between the high-end market and some of the most disadvantaged people in Cambodia: when a customer buys a luxury jacket, he provides a spinner with 2 months work! The Lotus Farm aims at creating 500 new jobs within 5 years. From the lotus flower harvest to the local hand-made weaving process, the Lotus Farm offers visitors an exceptional experience to discover all the steps in the creation of this rare and luxurious fabric: Guided tour Educational feature Sensory discovery Tea and other lotus products tasting Souvenir shop 4
2. The production process a. Lotus harvesting Based on their growth, the farmers proceed with the harvest of the most suitable stems by boat, four times a day; this amounts to a weekly crop that weighs one tonne. The main secret of lotus fabric is to transform the fiber into thread while preserving all its qualities: being an aquatic plant, the lotus fibers must be extracted and worked with in a humid environment. b. The spinning stage, a crucial step Spinning is the stage during which the fiber is transformed into thread. After cleaning the stems, the spinners cut around them carefully and pull on the tips to extract the lotus fiber. In order to produce high-quality thread, twelve layers of fiber need to be placed on top of each other and rolled with caution and precision. A spinner produces 250 meters of thread daily. Four meters of fabric or 12,000 meters of thread are necessary to make one jacket. This corresponds to a 2-month full-time job. Because of its complexity, this process can only be handmade. c. The weaving stage Before weaving it, the thread is coiled in order to increase its strength. It is then reeled into skeins. It takes 15 days to set up the weaving loom to make 50 meters of fabric over a 2-month period. The vertical threads are called the warp while the horizontal ones are called the weft. The twisted thread is rolled around a spool placed in a wooden shuttle that carries it across the loom. The weaver operates the loom by using pedals in a repetitive way. She can weave one meter of lotus fabric per day. 5
d. A fabric with outstanding properties Lotus fabric possesses unique properties; it is naturally soft, light and breathable. It is a very ecological fabric: It doesn t contain any chemical or toxic products. The manufacturing process doesn t require any gas, petrol, electricity or additional water. The lotus flower is a phytosanitary plant that cleans the water in which it grows and preserves the ecosystem while protecting fish and insects. The whole process takes place within the framework of sustainable development. e. Putting lotus waste to good use There is not wastage from lotus flowers! All the parts that are not used in the weaving process are edible and have unique properties. Petals, pistils and placenta are dehydrated in a specially designed solar oven in order to produce tea varieties and infusions. In doing so, the Lotus Farm has come up with a unique range of lotus tea that follows traditional local recipes. The seeds can be planted or consumed both raw and cooked. Alternatively, they can be crushed to produce pastry flour. People also use lotus flowers for decoration and their aniseed-flavored scent fills many Asian countries with their fragrance. 6
III. Press Review «New lotus flower farm opens near town», Phnom Penh Post, Miranda Glasser, 15 November 2013 Recently Samatoa founder Awen Delaval made an astonishing discovery about the humble lotus flower it could be turned into eco-friendly clothes. And now those clothes are being produced at a new lotus farm about five kilometres from town. Samatoa s Lotus Farm, on the road to Phnom Krom and overlooking a stunning sixhectare lotus flower expanse, opened last week and shows visitors the harvesting, spinning and weaving process of the lotus stem fibre as it s transformed into thread. Awen Delaval, general manager of fair trade silks manufacturer Samatoa, says the company had been inundated with requests from travel agents wanting to take guests to the main farm near Battambang, but this is a long way from town and difficult to visit, and the workshop was also destroyed by flooding. It was an opportunity for us to have an alternative to Battambang, he says. At the moment we only have three spinners and two weavers, but we plan to bring ten more spinners in the next two months. In one day a girl can produce 200 metres on average of thread. We need 3,000 metres to make one metre of fabric, so one girl usually can produce enough thread to produce one metre per month. This makes the luxury jackets produced by the Lotus Farm incredibly exclusive and expensive. Delaval explains that one of Samatoa s main objectives is to connect the poorer people of Cambodia to the luxury market. If a customer buys one jacket, he gives a girl a job for four months, he says. In April, Insider reported that lotus jackets expected to sell for around $3,000-$5,000 were being made for a high-end concept store in Hong Kong. This store turns out to be owned by Hong Kong businessman Sir David Tang and is due to open on November 16. Awen Delaval says he has produced 20 jackets and they will go on sale when the Hong Kong store opens. We also have some more very good news, he adds. We have been contacted by a very famous designer in France called Sakina M sa. She s very happy to collaborate with Samatoa and will come next month to design a collection for Samatoa, and to promote lotus clothing in France through her fashion shows. Lotus Farm also has on display a collection of byproducts derived from the lotus plant such as incense, tea, coffee, lip-balm and assorted bath products. I think the best products are lotus tea and lotus stamen coffee, says Delaval. We mix the stamens with coffee from Ratanakiri and it creates a unique taste. I ve never seen it anywhere else and people usually really like it. We will also introduce a new collection of jewellery made from lotus fibres in different colours. 7
IV. Figures, Eco-Fibers projects / Lotus Farm 1. Figures - In 2013, Eco-Fibers produced 400 meters of lotus fabric; this result corresponds to a 5.7 increase compared to 2012 (70 meters). - The number of customers has increased by 350% within a year. - The number of staff members has jumped from 10 to 40 people. - Eco-Fibers distributes its lotus fabric on the domestic market and abroad to famous designers in the US and Australia, as well as high-end concept stores in Hong Kong and Singapore. 2. Development In order to meet the demand, the company plans to produce more than 100 meters of fabric monthly by the end of 2014. The final objective is to duplicate the experience in several areas in Cambodia and then in other Asian countries. At the same time, Samatoa is carrying out a study aiming at setting up a bio-textile farm. Its objective will be to conduct organic textile research in collaboration with various NGOs and scientists. 8
V. Cambodia at a glance Cambodia is among the ten poorest countries in the world with a population of 14 million people of which 30% are under 14 years old. Despite the extreme poverty in which a large segment of the population lives (31% of people are below the poverty line), Cambodia has witnessed an economic boom since the end of the 1990s and has benefited from increasing foreign investments. The kingdom s GDP increased by about 10% annually from 2004 to 2007. In spite of this growth, the GDP per capita in Cambodia is only 773 dollars annually and remains well below the regional average and even a number of sub-saharan countries. During the past three years bilateral and multilateral French development assistance to Cambodia has amounted to 25 million euros annually. It has specially targeted the following sectors: health, higher education and research, infrastructures, trade and the textile industry. Agriculture remains the main economic sector (57.6% of the labor force and 33.4% of the GDP). The main industries in Cambodia are the clothing industry and tourism (with over 2 million visitors in 2007-2008). 9
VII. Contacts Mr Awen DELAVAL, Director Tel. : (+855) 63 96 53 10 or (+855) 12 28 59 30 E-mail: gm@samatoa.com Website: www.lotusfarm.org : Lotus Farm by Samatoa Online Articles Le Petit Journal du Cambodge, 16 décember 2013 issue : Online Videos http://www.shamengo.com/fr/pionnier/89-awen-delaval https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qqdujskmo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq0sp1ym3vm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cna-2qp6eic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjsz45e1zci https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asndefq3bhu Currently shooting: RFI and TF1 ( Reportages documentary) http://www.lepetitjournal.com/cambodge/3109-cambodge-a-voir-a-faire/172358-lotus-farm-de-samatoa-lerenouveau-de-l-aventure-textile Phnom Penh Post, 15 November 2013 issue: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/siem-reap-insider/new-lotus-flower-farm-opens-near-town Siemreappost.com, 12 November 2013 issue: http://www.siemreappost.com/lotus-farm/ Phnom Penh Post, 12 April 2013 issue: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/siem-reap-insider/high-end-fashion-fabric-coup 10