During Cambodia’s monsoon season, rice farmer Sam Vongsay’s backyard fills with water and the plastic trash of his houseboat-dwelling neighbours as the Tonle Sap lake grows with floodwaters from the Mekong River.
But during the dry half of the year, which runs from December to May, Vongsay can hardly access a drop of lake water from his home in Chong Khneas, which is located about 220km (137 miles) north-west of the capital Phnom Penh.
The 40-year-old farmer lacks a viable well or the equipment to pump the lake’s water the 2km (1.2 miles) distance to his property, and blames farmers upstream for diverting much of the flow to irrigate their crops.
In full: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/1/14/nothing-to-harvest
