Yu Thy and his wife at their home in Chaem Kravien commune in Tboung Khmum province, Cambodia, where they farm a plot of land allocated by a government-led land program. (World Bank/Thomson Reuters Foundation)
June 24 2021
When COVID-19 choked off the tourism that throttles Cambodia’s temple town of Siem Reap, Yu Thy and his wife lost their gardening jobs and headed home to grow something different.
They’ve not looked back.
For the switch from hotel gardeners to vegetable farmers has been a rare sliver of good fortune forced on them by a pandemic that has killed nearly 400 Cambodians.
A year after the couple packed up their Siem Reap life and travelled 300 km to their village, life has changed so much for the better they have no plans to go back.
At the root of the decision — a simple, 1.5-hectare plot allocated under a government-led program on which the couple now grow vegetables, tend rubber trees, and raise chickens.
As most Cambodians struggled to make a living in lockdown, Thy and his wife provided for their family and even made extra by selling their vegetables in central Tboung Khmum province.
Thy is his own boss and sets his own hours — his new life in rustic Chaem Kravien commune is a world away from Siem Reap, which throngs with visitors drawn to its world-famous Angkor Wat complex of Buddhist temples.
Read the full news in LiCAS.news.
