Page 2 - Agriculture in Cambodia

Fishing hut on the Tonle Sap

Collectivization of the agricultural sector under the Heng Samrin regime included the formation of solidarity
groups. As small aggregates of people living in the same locality, known to one another, and able to a
certain extent to profit collectively from their work, they were an improvement over the dehumanized,
forced-labor camps and communal life of the Pol Pot era. The organization of individuals and families into
solidarity groups also made sense in the environment of resource-poor, post-war Cambodia. People working
together in this way were able to offset somewhat the shortages of manpower, draft animals, and farm
implements.

In 1986, more than 97 percent of the rural population belonged to the country's more than 100,000 solidarity
groups. Unlike the large communes of the Khmer Rouge, the solidarity groups were relatively small. They
consisted initially of between twenty and fifty families and were later reduced to between seven and fifteen
families. The groups were a form of "peasants' labor association," the members of which continued to be
owners of the land and of the fruits of their labor. According to a Soviet analyst, the solidarity groups
"organically united" three forms of property—the land, which remained state property; the collectively
owned farm implements and the harvest; and the individual peasant's holding, each the private property of a
peasant family.

In theory, each solidarity group received between ten and fifteen hectares of common land, depending upon
the region and land availability. This land had to be cultivated collectively, and the harvest had to be divided
among member families according to the amount of work each family had contributed as determined by a
work point system. In dividing the harvest, allowance was made first for those who were unable to
contribute their labor, like the elderly and the sick, as well as nurses, teachers, and administrators. Some of
the harvest was set aside as seed for the following season, and the rest was distributed to the workers. Those
who performed heavy tasks and who consequently earned more work points received a greater share of the
harvest than those who worked on light tasks. Women without husbands, however, received enough to live
on even if they did little work and earned few work points. Work points also were awarded, beyond personal
labor, to individuals or to families who tended group-owned livestock or who lent their own animals or tools
for solidarity group use.

Each member family of a solidarity group was entitled to a private plot of between 1,500 and 2,000 square
meters (depending upon the availability of land) in addition to land it held in common with other members.
Individual shares of the group harvest and of the produce from private plots were the exclusive property of
the producers, who were free to consume store, barter, or sell them.

The solidarity groups evolved into three categories, each distinct in its level of collectivization and in its
provisions for land tenure. The first category represented the highest level of collective labor. Member
families of each solidarity group in this category undertook all tasks from plowing to harvesting. Privately
owned farm implements and draft animals continued to be individual personal property, and the owners
received remuneration for making them available to the solidarity group during the planting and the
harvesting seasons. Each group also had collectively owned farm implements, acquired through state
subsidy.

The second category was described as "a transitional form from individual to collective form" at the KPRP
National Conference in November 1984. This category of group was different from the first because it
distributed land to member families at the beginning of the season according to family size. In this second
category, group members worked collectively only on heavy tasks, such as plowing paddy fields and
transplanting rice seedlings. Otherwise, each family was responsible for the cultivation of its own land
allotment and continued to be owner of its farm implements and animals, which could be traded by private
agreement among members. Some groups owned a common pool of rice seeds, contributed by member
families, and of farm implements, contributed by the state. The size of the pool indicated the level of the
group's collectivization. The larger the pool, the greater the collective work. In groups that did not have a