Royal Plowing Day: what do we celebrate during this public holiday?

Happy Royal Plowing Day! 

The Royal plowing ceremony or known as “Bon Chroat Preah Nongkoal” in the Khmer language, is one of the most important of Cambodia’s royal ceremonies celebrated at the beginning of the sowing and planting season. Every year in May, this ceremony usually takes place near the royal palace in front of the national museum in Phnom Penh. It marks the traditional beginning of the rice-growing season and is observed with strong faith and belief by Cambodian farmers. 

The 2022 Cambodian’s Royal Plowing Ceremony was set to be held on May 19. Traditionally, the ceremony begins with three plows with sacred oxen to plow three times symbolically the ground. After the plowing ceremony, the oxen consumed three of the seven crops presented to them containing rice, corn, soybeans, sesame, water, grass, and rice wine where the items consumed are believed to predict a rich agricultural production in the upcoming year. 

The prediction can be interpreted as below:

    The more the oxen eat the grain, the better the harvest of that grain will be.

• If one of the oxen eats the rice, there will be a good rice harvest.

• If one of the oxen eats the sesame, there will be a good sesame harvest.

• If one of the oxen eats the corn, there will be a good corn harvest.

• If one of the oxen eats the soybeans, there will be a good soybeans harvest. 

• If one of the oxen eats the grass, there will be a widespread animal disease.

• If one of the oxen drinks the water, there will be heavy rainfall.

• If one of the oxen drinks the wine, it may possibly lead to terrible crimes within the country.

However, for 2022, this is the third year in which the official ceremony was canceled due to the COVID-19 situation. Although the contamination rate is very low, the government is still taking all the necessary precautions to diminish its spread as much as possible.