Cambodian rice production hits record

Cambodia produced a record rice harvest of 4.7 million tonnes in 2003/04, with a surplus of more than a million tonnes due to good weather, officials said on Wednesday. "This is the highest ever rice production in Cambodia's history because of steady rains and better seeds," Chan Tong Yves, secretary of state at the agriculture ministry, told Reuters.
The Southeast Asian nation used to produce an estimated 3 million tonnes of paddy rice annually before it was plunged into civil war and the Khmer Rouge genocide in the 1970s.
Rice output has risen steadily since a United Nations-backed peace plan in the 1990s, which paved the way to an end of decades of hostilities.