Day 30: Cambodia

[phk]

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/cb.html

Discuss

[Cubby]

They suffered a massive population loss in the late 1970's but have made it up and then some by now.

I was always intrigued with how the Khmer Rouge evacuated all the cities and made everyone live in the countyside, that was a strange policy.

[minionofmidas]

Funny thing is, it sort of worked. Cambodia became self-supporting in agriculture during this period.

[DanielX]

Funny thing is, it sort of worked. Cambodia became self-supporting in agriculture during this period.

Maybe it helped that almost 40% of Cambodia's population died, nyet?

[minionofmidas]

Funny thing is, it sort of worked. Cambodia became self-supporting in agriculture during this period.

Maybe it helped that almost 40% of Cambodia's population died, nyet?

Nyes...
that should be expected to have a long-term effect in that direction, but not a short term one (with all the disruption and suffering and such, not a lot might get done.)

[opebo]

This country was my favorite in the world, because it contained K11.  Alas, that wonder has been destroyed by the christian interlopers.

[ag]

Funny thing is, it sort of worked. Cambodia became self-supporting in agriculture during this period.

Maybe it helped that almost 40% of Cambodia's population died, nyet?

Nyes...
that should be expected to have a long-term effect in that direction, but not a short term one (with all the disruption and suffering and such, not a lot might get done.)

Define "self-supporting" (or did you mean "self-sufficient"?). You don't need to import food if you are willing to have a large chunk of your population to starve to death - preferably, after they've worked hard on planting for the next harvest - and leave most of the remainder underfed. If that's the standard, there isn't a country in the world that couldn't be "self-sufficient" if it were to adopt similar policies. USSR was exporting humongous quantities of food in the early 1930s - exactly the same time that 10 mln. people (at least, probably more) starved to death there. Was it self-sufficient back then? When in the late 1950s or early 1960s Khruschev started buying grain, instead of selling it, it was  not because harvests failed, nor because population grew, but because he redefined what was "sufficient" for a Soviet citizen. So, does it mean USSR was "self-sufficient" under Stalin and stopped being "self-sufficient" under Khruschev?

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, I notice the problems with these definitions.

But the impression I got - I may be wrong - was that Cambodia's rice harvests etc actually increased in absolute terms at the time. The country had been importing quite a lot of its food before. 
Of course, it#s still not a policy I would try to recreate. That sort of goes without saying. I mean, I wear glasses. If you wore glasses in Red Khmer Cambodia, you were considered a westernized intellectual, and liable to be executed.