Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/rice-production-makes-a-comeback-in-war-ravaged-cambodia Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Amid rising food prices and supply shortages, Cambodia has managed to increase its food production by turning the war-ravaged country's former "killing fields" into rice fields. Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on the transformation. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: Now, turning Cambodia's killing fields back into rice fields. Special correspondent Fred de Sam Lazaro has the story. FRED DE SAM LAZARO, NewsHour Correspondent: Rice is a staple in most of Asia, and shortages and high prices have triggered riots in several countries. But here in Cambodia, things have been calm, thanks to record harvests, says Minister of Information Khieu Kanharith.KHIEU KANHARITH, Minister of Information, Cambodia: The food situation in Cambodia is good. You know, we had the last year production be at a surplus of 2 million ton of rice. And this is a good reserve for food security. Despite that, we can even get more. FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Cambodia even exported some of its surplus to the Middle East and Africa, and the government hopes to double production in the next few years, welcome news in a global rice market that's seen tightening supplies.Yet success is all the more noteworthy given Cambodia's recent history.This museum offers a glimpse of how the Khmer Rouge regime wiped out almost two million people in the 1970s, almost a quarter of the population. With them went farming know-how. Hundreds of rice strains that over the centuries have adapted to local conditions died off, as well. MEN SAROM, Cambodia Rice Institute: Some variety respond well for drought, some not. Some respond well for, you know, flood, some not.