Drought resilience of smallholder rice systems in the Tonle Sap floodplain

Background

Smallholder rice systems around the Tonle Sap floodplain face increasing exposure to erratic rainfall, with recent seasons showing greater variability in the onset and intensity of the monsoon than in previous decades.

Understanding which farm-level factors most strongly affect drought resilience is essential for designing targeted support programmes rather than broad, undifferentiated interventions.

Methods

The article draws on household survey data collected from smallholder farms around the Tonle Sap floodplain over three consecutive growing seasons, covering farm characteristics, irrigation access and reported yields.

Statistical analysis was used to identify which farm-level factors were most strongly associated with yield stability during seasons with below-average rainfall.

Key findings

Access to supplementary irrigation, even at a modest scale, emerged as the strongest predictor of yield stability among the factors examined, outweighing farm size and soil type.

Farms without any supplementary irrigation showed substantially greater yield variability between drought and normal seasons compared with those having even partial irrigation access.

Policy recommendations

The article recommends prioritising investment in small-scale, community-managed irrigation infrastructure over large centralised schemes, given the observed impact of even modest irrigation access.

It also suggests that resilience programmes elsewhere in the CLMV subregion facing similar rainfall variability could benefit from evaluating irrigation access as a primary intervention point.