TAKEO, Cambodia, May 22 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia celebrated a traditional royal ploughing ceremony here on Wednesday to mark the annual beginning of farming season.
Cambodian King Norodom Sihamoni, along with high-profile figures and foreign diplomats, took part in the event, which was held in Takeo province's Daun Keo town, about 86 km south of Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia.
The ceremony also attracted thousands of local visitors.
Since ancient times, royal oxen were used to plough and predict agricultural yields and weather in the year.
In this year's event, King Sihamoni assigned Takeo Provincial Governor Ouch Phea as the king of the ploughing ceremony and the governor's wife, Srey Punnadavy, as the queen of sowing ceremony.
The designated king ploughed the rice field by using royal oxen and the assigned queen sowed seeds on the furrow as the symbol of planting.
After three rounds of ploughing across the field, the oxen were offered seven plates of food: rice, corn, green bean, sesame, water, fresh-cut grass, and wine.
Customarily, if the oxen eat a lot of agricultural items, it is believed that agricultural crops will give good output in the year, but if they eat little, it is thought that yields will be low.
If the oxen eat grass and wine, it will be predicted that cattle will be plagued by epidemics, and if they drink a lot of water, floods will be expected.
At the ceremony, the oxen had rice, corn, and green bean, and a court soothsayer predicted that the three kinds of crops would give good yields this year.
"The royal oxen ate 85 percent of rice, 90 percent of corn, and 85 percent of green bean," Kang Keng, chief of the soothsayers at the Royal Palace,said.
"This is just a prediction based on the custom of the royal ploughing ceremony that has existed since an old time," he said. "This ceremony is to notify farmers that agricultural season has come," he added.
Cambodia is an agrarian country with more than 80 percent of the population being farmers.
