The Poisoned Rice Fields: Food Security and Angkor's Fall

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore a fresh angle on the Khmer Empire's collapse: the silent crisis of food security. How did elaborate water management, soil degradation, and a shift to double-cropping rice set the stage for disaster? We follow the story of Yasovarman II, whose reign saw not just external threats but a growing fragility in the empire's very fields. We uncover evidence from the Greater Angkor Project about soil exhaustion, the impact of Theravada Buddhism on agricultural labor, and the role of the Tonle Sap's fluctuating waters. The episode traces how a changing climate and centuries of intensive farming made Angkor's legendary rice surpluses a thing of the past, leaving the city vulnerable to both famine and the armies of Ayutthaya. This is a story of a civilization undone not by a single blow, but by a thousand small failures in the fields that fed it. #KhmerEmpire #Angkor #FoodSecurity #RiceAgriculture #SoilDegradation #TonleSap #YasovarmanII #GreaterAngkorProject #TheravadaBuddhism #Ayutthaya #ClimateChange #WaterManagement #DoubleCropping #CambodiaHistory #SoutheastAsiaHistory #Collapse #History #FexingoHistory Keep every episode free: buymeacoffee.com/fexingo