From his wooden house on stilts, Kong Song, a Cambodian farmer, points out the tractor kicking up a vast dust cloud on the land where he and his fellow villagers once cultivated watermelons, maize and other lucrative cash crops to supplement their rice harvests.
The watermelons, sold at a nearby beach resort, helped residents of Trapeang Kandol village buy motorbikes and mobile phones and finance wedding feasts – significant economic advances in the impoverished countryside.
