Badui farming tradition yields bountiful harvests, ensuring food security

Lebak (ANTARA) - The Badui indigenous community in the hinterlands of Lebak Regency, Banten, possesses farming traditions capable of producing abundant upland rice (padi huma) harvests, thereby ensuring the community’s food security during the dry season.

“To this day, the food availability for the Badui people remains secure,” said Jaro Oom, a traditional elder and also the Head of Kanekes Village, Leuwidamar District, Lebak Regency, when contacted in Banten on Friday.

The Badui indigenous people currently maintain food reserves in thousands of granaries, or “leuit”, to store the harvested paddy from their upland rice crops.

Once a year, during each harvest, they store the paddy in these leuit granaries as a family food reserve to ensure that prolonged dry seasons, natural disasters, or pest attacks do not lead to food insecurity.

“Because of this, the Badui community has never experienced food insecurity or famine,” said Jaro Oom.

According to him, the Badui people have experienced sustainable food sovereignty from the past to the present through the use of leuit granaries to store harvested paddy.

It is estimated that there are approximately 8,000 leuit granaries serving 4,000 households, with a total population of 13,309 people.

If each of the 8,000 granaries holds an average of three tonnes, the total amount of paddy would reach 24,000 tonnes.

“We believe that the food stocks in the granaries can be maintained for family food security,” he explained.

Santa (55), a resident of the Badui community, stated that his granary stores seven tonnes of paddy from upland harvests accumulated over six years.

So far, the food supplies stored in the leuit granaries have not been used for family consumption.

“To this day, our rice consumption needs are met through purchases and food assistance from Bulog, so the paddy harvested and stored in the leuit has never been used,” he explained.

Meanwhile, the Head of the Lebak Regency Agriculture Office, Rahmat Yuniar, stated that the food reserves of the Badui community are relatively secure and no food insecurity has occurred, supported by their tradition of storing an average of three tonnes of paddy per granary.

“We appreciate that the Badui community has maintained food security and that the paddy from every harvest is not sold,” he explained.