Known as the Rice Bowl of Cambodia the province has a strong agricultural economy with a great production of rice. In the 2006 rainy season 2,440.14 km² of rice, were cultivated for production and the average rice yielded 2.2 tons per hectare, with the total output standing at 536,830.80 tons. With the amount reserved for consumption, seeds, animal food, and waste during harvest, there were about 300,000 tons left for sale. The Department of Agriculture in Cambodia has provided quality rice seed varieties like the Romduol and Senpidor strains for farmers to grow on their rice fields as a demonstration and have allocated significant funds towards experimentation in many of the provinces districts.In addition to rice, subsidiary crops were also planted on 98,342 hectares, including some 420 km² of corn, 400 km² of red corn, 180 km² of cassava, 2.42 km2 of sweet potatoes and many other crops including green beans and chillies. There was a total of 501.78 km² of industrial crops with ground nuts, soybean, jute, sugarcane produced. The Province also produces notable quantities of pineapple, sesame, grapefruit, oil palm and saffron.
Besides arable farming, local people mainly indulge in livestock breeding, rice seed production, the production of animal fodder, etc. while few operate animal breeding farms. Strategies laid out by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery, have intended to aid the transition from the tradition of growing long-term rice varieties to using medium- and short-term varieties and practicing nature-based intensive rice farming.
Battambang Province has 12 fishing lots and commercial fishing exceeded 7,000 tons in 2006 of which 990 tons of rice field fish were caught by local families. The province has 37 fishing communities, each with over 300 members.
During this monsoon season, snakeheads and snakehead murrels are a common target of fishing with a significant increase in stock in recent years due to the Ministry of Agriculture imposing restrictions on illegal fishing to ensure sustainability.The area is known locally and internationally as the “Rice Bowl” of Cambodia. This is because the economy of Battambang is extremely efficient in the production of rice, and additionally because of the comparative advantage and local endowments in the region. An estimated 2,400 square kilometers of land is used in rice production, with the figure growing consistently each year. This abundance of land results in over 500,000 tonnes of rice being produced annually, with around 300,000 of that being traded locally and internationally. Other successful industries include sweet potatoes, cassava, normal and red corn, a chillies. Indeed, industrial crops took up approximately 500 square kilometers of land – a far cry from the rice production fields, but nevertheless a significant proportion. Inflation in the area is a modest 1.6 percent in 2002, with an unemployment rate of just 2.6%. This is unsurprising given the amount of produce required to be harvested, and the variations of growing seasons leading to consistent, year long employment.
