Using the data from the Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey (CSES) 2009, the study examined the
impact of agricultural labor and land productivity on poverty among Cambodian rice farming households.
The results showed that improving productivity of land and, especially, that of labor reduced poverty in
two of Cambodia’s rice producing regions, the Tonle Sap and the Plain. There was no evidence of such
impact in two other regions, the Mountain and the Cost. When the productivity of the less productive
farming households were raised up to the mean level of productivity, only labor productivity was found to
have an impact on poverty reduction in the Tonle Sap and the Plain, indicating that improving agricultural
labor productivity is the key to poverty reduction. In Cambodia, improving rice productivity in the Tonle
Sap and the Plain region is the most poverty reducing.