PHNOM PENH - Drought has hit a fifth of Cambodia's rice growing land and the country is worried about running short of the staple, officials said on Wednesday.
The poor monsoon season affected 523,370 hectares (1.31 million acres) of the country's 2.5 million hectares of paddy, they said.
The drought had destroyed nearly 124,000 hectares of paddy and seriously affected nearly 399,384 hectares, according to an official report obtained by Reuters.
"Some provinces will face a shortage of rice in the coming months," said Nhim Vanda, chairman of the national disaster committee. "We are working with the World Food Programme how to respond to those needs."
The WFP started to deliver emergency food aid to 50,000 drought victims in drought-hit southern provinces last week.
The fears of food shortages prompted Prime Minister Hun Sen to order his government to send 10,000 water pumps to help farmers, Nhim Vanda said.
Such pumps could help farmers rescue crops in the nearly 400,000 hectares seriously affected, but the country could not not avoid a rice shortage, a senior agriculture official said.
"We estimate that more than 10 percent of the country's rice crop has been destroyed and there could be more to come," he said.
About 85 percent of Cambodia's 13 million people depend on growing rice to make a living.
Last year, they produced a record 4.7 million tonnes and contributed greatly to economic growth of 5.2 percent.
The International Monetary Fund has forecast growth would fall to 4-4.5 percent this year without a repeat of the 2003 bumper rice crops.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
