Once maligned as a waste product, the hay and rice stalks left over after rice has been harvested are now a celebrated by-product of rice production, able to earn farmers as much as one million riel per hectare.
More than 1,000 workers from the Fortress International Co Ltd factory in Phnom Penh’s Dangkor district rushed out of the premises in dismay on June 9 after medical workers took throat swabs to test for Covid-19.