Growing Rice in Cambodia 101: From the Field to the Table

Photo Story

Growing Rice in Cambodia 101: From the Field to the Table

ID # 2829

Introduction  This photo story takes place in Cambodia in Phnom Penh, the capital city, Siem Reap, and nearby towns. I worked there during the summer of 2011 at a nonprofit called International Development Enterprises. As a communications intern, I got to learn about all of the different projects IDE was working in order to be able to write about them. One such project focused on helping farmers improve their farming techniques in order to be more productive. IDE trained local residents with the capacity to act as a Farm Business Adviser. The FBAs then sold their farming advice and quality farming products in order to make a livelihood while simultaneously improving the productivity of local farmers. This photo story follows the process of growing food in Cambodia to seeing the delicious cuisine on the table!

Objective: Students will be able to track the rice value chain from the field to the table, recognizing the role of rice in the cuisine and the economy.

This photo story is geared toward students in 7th grade.

 

Photo One: Life on Water in a Floating Village

Photo One: Cambodia has the climate and geography that allows for low-lying wetlands to span much of the country. This picture is of a floating village outside Siem Reap where villagers have actually made their permanent homes on the water. The Cambodian government invests money in attracting tourism to the floating village because of its uniqueness. Tour guides take boats full of tourists through the village, allowing them to take pictures. What is the climate like where you live? Do people ever live in boats in your country? If you lived in a boat, would you want it to be a tourist attraction? What about if it gave you money for food you wouldn’t have had otherwise?

 

Photo Two: Marketplace Cuisine To-Go

Photo Two:  This picture depicts different types of foods that Cambodians may choose to eat with rice, a diet staple. The picture was taken in a market in Phnom Penh, the capital city. Cambodian cuisine tends to be very flavorful, sometimes even very spicy. They usually eat their meals either with rice or noodles. They even eat rice and noodles for breakfast! Are there certain foods that you tend to eat more than others? Does your family cook foods that might not be considered typical “American” foods? Are your breakfast foods very different from what you eat for dinner? Why is that?

 

Photo Three: Teamwork!

Photo Three:  Much of Cambodia is rural and filled with rice cropland such as this. The low-lying wetlands makes for the perfect cropland for growing rice. During the wet season, the rice fields are filled with low-lying water to keep them wet at all times. Farmers often use pumps to pull water from the ground to grow rice in the dry season when there is not naturally enough of the necessary low-lying water. Did you know that agriculture is the biggest source of water consumption in the United States? Once the rice has grown to a certain length, workers will go into the field and pull it up in large clumps to transplant it. Here, three women are pulling the clumps up from their roots.

 

Photo Four: Getting Down to Our Roots

Photo Four: Here, this women is showing how she pulls the rice all the up from the roots. For transplanting it into another field, it is essential that the roots are preserved so the rice can grow again. All of the women working in the fields have much of their skin covered up, including wearing hats, to protect them from the sun. If a person’s skin is weathered from the sun, it is clear they are a rural farm worker. In order to appear urban, and therefore to have more social status, Cambodians will try to make sure to cover up. Do the people in your culture value be tanned or not? Why or why not?

 

Photo Five: Proud Rice Clump

Photo Five:  This is what a finished clump looks like. It is my own handy work, and therefore not nearly as neatly done as when the professionals do it. However, everyone was still really proud of me because this was my first time helping to transplant rice. They insisted we take a photo of my first rice clump. Everyone wanted me to get involved in the process, and they were very patient with how bad I was at it.

 

Photo Six: Field of Transplants

Photo Six: Once the rice is clumped up, it is moved to another field to be transplanted to spread and therefore have a whole other field of rice for a larger crop. The clumps are undone and the roots are pressed into the wet, muddy ground to begin taking root in the new field. A man followed behind the women pressing the rice into the new field with a bucket of rice seeds, spreading them around to fill in the holes for fuller growth. What landscape did you picture for Cambodia?

 

Photo Seven: Fastest Rice Transplant I’ve Ever Seen

Photo Seven:  Here, the group is moving their clumps of rice to the next field to transplant them. These agricultural workers learned their farming techniques from a Farm Business Advisor, an “Avon lady” of sorts for farmers. The FBAs offer their farming technique knowledge and quality farming inputs in exchange for some of the profits from the crops. This is important because many farmers in Cambodia lack technical farming knowledge. One of the few sources for farming technical knowledge is listening to the radio, which sometimes plays educational shows. Farmers told me they wished the government would host more educational shows on television so they could gain more knowledge about farming. The FBA program was set up by a nonprofit, International Development Enterprises, where I worked for the summer. These women were incredibly fast with transplanting the rice. They didn’t all technically own or work at the farm, but they knew their friends would help them when they had similar tasks to be done as well. What do agricultural workers wear to work in the States? If you wanted farming advice, where would you go to?

 

Photo Eight: A Little Help From the Animal Friends

Photo Eight: The field where the rice is being transplanted to has been prepared already by farm animals. The rice crop is often sold in neighboring Vietnam or to local markets. There is  a hotel in Vietnam that often buys the vegetables and rice these farmers grow. It is difficult for farmers to know what price to sell their products at because they have to get a feel for what is everyone else selling similar products at. If they shoot too low with the price, they lose money they could have had. If they shoot too high, they may lose their buyer. The markets closest by to this particular village are in Siem Reap. Farmers keep up with the market by talking to their neighbors and friends. In Cambodia, women often take the produce to the market. They handle the household finances in general as well. Who handles the finances in your household?

Conclusion

Rice is incredibly important part of the economy and the daily life of Cambodians. Not only is it a major source of income, but growing it has been the occupation of many rural Cambodians for generations. Despite this, many Cambodians lack technical farming skills and knowledge of which farming products are quality. Rice is such an important crop because Cambodians eat it so often, but also because they export it to many surrounding Asian countries.

Photo Credits

All photos were taken by Chelsea Phipps.