In Battambang province, once known as the most fertile ground in Cambodia, many farmers are watching their rice seedlings turn brown and dry up from drought, just one year after many of Cambodia’s fields were drowned by floods.
Nguy Song, a farmer in Bavel district, said it has been a bad year, without any heavy rainfall.
“It just drizzles here sometimes,” he said. “I heard that other places have water to grow rice. Every day I watch the sky and wait for the rain to fall.”
If no rain comes, he asked, “how can we survive?”
Last year’s flood claimed hundreds of lives and caused millions of dollars in damage. This year, crops in the Ratanak Mondol and Bavel districts are dying from drought in the past two months.
Others besides the farmers are hurt by the drought. Um Vanna, a vendor in Ratanak Mondol, sells most of his goods on credit. His customers, almost all of them farmers, pay him when they harvest their rice during the dry season. If the wet season is dry there will be little or no harvest, he said.
“If they are not helped I don’t know what will happen,” he said.
Um Vanna said he hoped that NGOs or others would help dig canals or wells to bring in the water that the clouds have not been bringing this rainy season.
Some parts of Battambang have rain, however. Seth Vannareth, the Weather Forecast Director, said rainfall has been uneven this year. One district may experience drought while 20 km away another might have enough or even too much rain.
Sear Heng, a rice-mill owner in Thmar Koul district of Battambang province, said farmers there bring rice to him for sale daily. Although it has rained little there, farmers had enough water in canals to irrigate their fields.
“They told me that if it starts to rain from today the rice crop will be good and might be better than any other year because farmers have spent a lot money on fertilizers for growing rice,” he said.
