The Study on Flood’s Impact on Rice Production in Sandek Commune Bathay District Kampong Cham

Abstract

Flood is regarded as the most serious natural disaster that affected the economy of Cambodia. As the consequence, flooding has caused the loss of many lives, and has addressed impacts on social welfare and damaged the public and household properties. Livestock and crops were also destroyed. It has caused not only on the economic impact, but also on social and environmental problems of the nation. Seeing this serious problem which is an obstacle for the development of Cambodia, this study have been conducted with three main objectives are (1) to identify the extent of flood’s impact on rice yields of farmers, (2) to assess the economic impact of rice production, and (3) to explore the farmer’s adaptation capacity on rice pattern to the flood. To achieve those objectives, structured questionnaires were used with 96 who participated in the interview. The Study showed that the major flooding event in the last twenty years, worst flood in history in study site was the flood in 2011. Indeed, all respondents have evaluated there 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2011. Flood causes the most negative impact to their rice and mixed crops productions. The flood of 2011 has badly affected to economic value of farmer’s rice production, which total average yield 3.862 tones/ha were lost. Rice crop is the main source of farmer’s living, so this is the serious problem to their livelihoods. Low education of farmers was seen as the cause of low adaptation to flood. Most illiterate people (98%) were worst affected among the others in the study site. Recently, around a half of respondents grow dry season rice instead. Migration after that the flood in 2011 has become the popular way to generate more income. Conclusion, flood in 2011 is the worst impact on rice production in the study area. Further adaptation strategy is strongly needed for local people.