Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1964 Oct
Contents
Cambodia: Indochina's "Neutral" Corner With a washtub-size wicker basket and a hoist, men scooped for an hour to pour the shimmering harvest into Rom's bQat. "The Tonle Sap is one of the richest fishing waters in the world," said Rom. "The traps are always full-but not so our pockets. "Chinese moneylenders buy up government fishing concessions and lease them to us-at their price. Since they control the market, we must sell at their price." We roasted a plump trei chkowk, a sort of lake chub, over charcoal in the stern of Rom's boat, scooping up the delicious white meat and boiled rice with our fingers. Rom's barge was full of squirming carp, chub, and eels. Next morning he would start the four-day trip to Phnom Penh's markets. I think he looked forward to the journey. "We may never grow rich," he admitted, reaching for another steaming morsel, "but Takang will never let us go hungry." Model Farmers Learn New Skills A short way inland men and women were cutting a field of winter rice with sickles. It had been a good season, even if sheaves seemed scant and spare, and some fields hadn't even been planted. "Rice is rice," said one old man, bent and crooked as his sickle, but still cutting his share, "and our bowls are always full." Such, it seemed to me, was Cambodia's national at titude: the quiescent life, the resignation of Buddha. A boon? Perhaps. But it was also a bane to progress. I found one place doing something about it: the Station Genetique du Riz in Battam bang, capital of the rice-bowl province in northwestern Cambodia. "Seed selection is the first step to a better crop," said station director Meas Chhuth. "The average farmer today harvests little more than his grandfather did a century ago; usually only enough to feed his own family. But we are starting some new trends. We are teaching more than 3,000 model farmers throughout the province that, by using a little modern science, they can harvest profitable surpluses." Profitable to the country as a whole, too, I thought. Rice provides Cambodia with more than a third of its foreign exchange. "But to compete for overseas markets, qual ity is as important as quantity," Mr. Chhuth cautioned. His desk was stacked with sheaves of rice-bound, sorted, and labeled. "The Cambodian housewife prefers the smaller-grained rice, considered inferior in Europe. So we've developed larger varieties for export. This is our best." He handed me a sheaf. It bent from the weight of its plump kernels. A small bamboo tag identified it: "F3C81.5, type Sihanouk." Beans Augment Bumper Rice Crop A bouncing, dusty half-hour jeep ride brought us to one of the model farms. Its owner, Mr. Um Sunly, greeted us wearing an American-style sport shirt and a French be ret. He was larger than the average Cambo dian and burly as a water buffalo. It was near the end of the dry season, between crops. We had time to talk. We climbed the steps of his house, set high on mangrove piles. Banana trees and a young lemon grove shaded the front yard. Like so much of Cambodia's arable land, many of Mr. Sunly's 75 acres had long lain fallow. Four years before, he decided to put it to work and came to Chhuth's office. "At first I had doubts," he admitted. "But I bought some better seeds. Mr. Chhuth showed me how to make compost fertilizers; the soil here is generous, but it needs help. Commer cial nitrates are scarce and expensive. "Water was a problem; I was at the mercy of the rains. So with hired coolies I dug a ca nal to the river a mile away and built dikes. With poisons we attacked locusts and mice. Last year we put in a dry-season planting of mung beans to build soil nitrogen. "Of course a man can just broadcast a bag of seed rice and let the rain do the rest. It's an easy harvest-but a poor one. No more than half a ton per acre." He smiled. "Last year I got four times that-plus a bonus of beans to market!" With his profits Mr. Sunly has bought a small diesel irrigation pump and talks about a tractor next. Serpentine Banyan Tree Binds a Serene Stone Giant With Wooden Fetters Deserted for centuries, Angkor battled the invading jungle. Vines and roots pried stones apart, toppled towers and vaults, and heaved pavements; forests choked moats and canals. This Lokesvara, or future Buddha, guards a gateway to Ta Som Temple. KODACHROMEBY THOMAS J. ABERCROMBIE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICSTAFF© N.G .S . 533
Links
Archive
1964 Nov
1964 Sep
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page