Agriculture in Cambodia
[1] Rice production, a vital economic indicator in Cambodia's agrarian society, frequently fell far short of targets, causing severe food shortages in 1979, 1981, 1984, and 1987.
Adverse weather conditions, insufficient numbers of farm implements and of draft animals, inexperienced and incompetent personnel, security problems, and government collectivization policies all contributed to low productivity.
[citation needed] Collectivization of the agricultural sector under the Heng Samrin regime included the formation of solidarity groups.
As small aggregates of people living in the same locality, known to one another, and able to a certain extent to profit collectively from their work, they were an improvement over the dehumanized, forced-labor camps and communal life of the Pol Pot era.
In dividing the harvest, allowance was made first for those who were unable to contribute their labor, like the elderly and the sick, as well as nurses, teachers, and administrators.
Work points also were awarded, beyond personal labor, to individuals or to families who tended group-owned livestock or who lent their own animals or tools for solidarity group use.
Privately owned farm implements and draft animals continued to be individual personal property, and the owners received remuneration for making them available to the solidarity group during the planting and the harvesting seasons.
In this second category, group members worked collectively only on heavy tasks, such as plowing paddy fields and transplanting rice seedlings.
Otherwise, each family was responsible for the cultivation of its own land allotment and continued to be owner of its farm implements and animals, which could be traded by private agreement among members.
In groups that did not have a common pool of rice and tools, productive labor was directed primarily to meeting the family's needs, and the relationship between the agricultural producers and the market or state organizations was very weak.
One of these in Siem Reap received a visit from HM Norodom Sihamoni for the 2012 Cambodian Arbor Day, during which the king planted a tree himself and gave gifts of saplings to their neighbours.
Moreover, representatives of international and of foreign relief organizations were not permitted to travel beyond Phnom Penh, except with special permission, because of security and logistics problems.
Despite statistical discrepancies, there is consensus that annual unmilled rice production during the 1979 to 1987 period did not reach the 1966 level of 2.5 million tons.
Nevertheless, since 1979, Cambodian rice production has increased gradually (except during the disastrous 1984 to 1985 season), and the nation in the late 1980s had just begun to achieve precarious self-sufficiency if estimates were borne out.
The third area, with rice yields of less than three-fifths of a ton per hectare, comprises the highlands and the mountainous provinces of Preah Vihear, Stoeng Treng, Ratanakiri, and Mondulkiri.
In addition to these two regular crops, peasants plant floating rice in April and in May in the areas around the Tonle Sap (Great Lake), which floods and expands its banks in September or early October.
Before the flooding occurs, the seed is spread on the ground without any preparation of the soil, and the floating rice is harvested nine months later, when the stems have grown to three or four meters in response to the peak of the flood (the floating rice has the property of adjusting its rate of growth to the rise of the floodwaters so that its grain heads remain above water).
Unseasonable droughts and unpredictable rainfall are increasingly disrupting rice cultivation and forcing Cambodian farmers to search for jobs in cities.
[6] The main secondary crops in the late 1980s were maize, cassava, sweet potatoes, groundnuts, soybeans, sesame seeds, dry beans, and rubber.
[citation needed] In 1987 Quan Doi Nhan Dan (People's Armed Forces, the Vietnamese army newspaper) reported considerable growth in the raising of draft animals in Cambodia.
Promoting agriculture and agro-industry has been identified as the best strategic response to macroeconomic crises in the country also improving food security, rural livelihoods and reducing poverty.
The Royal Government of Cambodia's Rectangular Strategy – Phase II (2008–2013) in the Fourth Legislature of the National Assembly defined a long-term vision for growth, employment, equity and efficiency.
