ABSTRACT
A food production strategy that focuses on such a small area will result in either increased social inequality or, if the surplus is rigorously redistributed, political discontent within the more productive areas. Within a central zone around Tonle Sap and Kampuchea's major rivers, annual flooding during the wet season months of July to October rejuvenates the soil but makes careful water control impossible. The annual flooding, however, is crucial to the maintenance of soil fertility and high rice and fish production. The ability to maintain paddy soil fertility for century after century has been a major test of Asian civilizations. The first farmers to grow rice in paddy fields in Kampuchea may have been emulating the natural processes of the Tonle Sap. The enduring productivity of both aquatic environments is based on the annual destruction by flooding of a terrestrial ecology followed by rapid growth fueled by the decay of the terrestrial biomass.
