This is how it made now. Isn’t it wonderful? I have to agree, even as traditionalist I see that those machines are the way faster and more effective. Also as a worker, I shuddered when I watched those sickles cutting the paddy so close to each other. Non-existant safety that was too bad! Unfortunately leaders did not seek to promote safety among agricultural workers, just record harvests. Maybe though it’s the better way to unite people? Hard to say, I’d like to try myself in the paddy with the sickle and see how it feels. Maybe one day.

I think the farming area of Battambang you mentioned, was where youth fresh out of the expanded education system were encouraged to settle. An attempt by the Sangkum to return these types to the soil, after realising that there was not enough room for them to be employed in the civil service. Also in that area, veterans of the army and their families were also allowed to take land I believe, putting pressure on and causing resentment among the local population. It was this, among other things, which contributed to the rebellion at Samlaut in 1967. I think the rebels attacked and chased off the young settlers.

I wonder where the farming scenes were filmed. I recall the Chinese helped Sihanouk set up a modern ‘show’ farm in Battambang which was run by the oxymoronically-named Royal Khmer Socialist Youth.