Australian research helping Angelina Jolie's work in Cambodia

June 19, 2009
Herald Sun (Australia)

AUSTRALIAN researchers are helping Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie improve the lot of Cambodia's farmers.

Work is underway to expand an SMS-based information network developed by the University of Canberra, which provides market updates to ensure remote Cambodian farmers get a fair price for their produce.

While these farmers live in areas which often lack basic infrastructure, Cambodia does have 85 per cent mobile coverage and text messages cost as little as US3 cents.

"We wanted to help farmers access the price of maize or soybeans on demand, so they were in a stronger position to negotiate the sale of their crop," says Dr Robert Fitzgerald.

"Some traders and farmers knew some price information but that was not always shared, so the only way the farmer could find out about the price was to travel to town or ask nearby friends.

"Now farmers can text the agricultural information server and straight away find out about the prices."

Working with the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation (MJP) - named after the Hollywood couple's adopted son from Cambodia - the scheme will be expanded on a trial basis to also offer health and pest warnings and other important information.

Only Zimbabwe and South Africa had higher rates of tuburculosis infection than Cambodia in 2007.

"We need, therefore, to find effective tools to quickly disseminate information to isolated and rural communities," says Stephan Bognar, Executive Director of MJP.

The project, also with involvement from the University of New England, is funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.

The celebrity couple have also donated $1 million to a UN refugee agency to help Pakistanis displaced by fighting between troops and Taliban militants.

Jolie, the star of 2008 movies Changeling and Wanted, has visited Pakistan three times to witness United Nations relief operations since becoming a "goodwill ambassador" for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in 2001.

The agency said it was grateful for the donation from Pitt and Jolie, and added that more than 2 million people in Pakistan had been uprooted this year as a result of the conflict in the northwest part of the country.

Most Pakistanis forced from their homes are living in government buildings or with host families, but 260,000 of them are in camps run by UNHCR, the agency said.

The Hollywood power couple, who gave the $1 million through their Jolie-Pitt Foundation, donated $2 million in September to help children in Ethiopia stricken by disease.