How Kalimantan farmers are surviving the monatary crisis
How Kalimantan farmers are surviving the monatary crisis
By Amon Stefanus
KETAPANG, West Kalimantan (JP): While most Indonesians are
living in apprehension as a result of the ongoing monetary
crisis, farmers in rural areas of this province have a different
story to tell.
Although they are often made the scapegoats for forest
destruction, forest fires and the haze, farmers are proving their
resilience during the nine-month monetary crisis.
According to Yohanes Suna, 35, an elementary school principal
in the rural Ketapang district, farmers in his locality are not
feeling the pinch of the monetary crisis because they are
currently in their harvest season and have sufficient supplies of
rice. The yield from each family's unirrigated rice fields is
expected to be enough to last them a whole year.
Their fields also supply them with various kinds of
vegetables, such as cassava leaves, cucumbers, wax gourds, and
eggplants. In addition they can also obtain from the forest such
vegetables as bamboo shoots, the edible topmost and innermost
frond of a palm, wild melinjo (Gnetum gnemon) and other kinds of
leaves.
What about protein? "We can fish in the rivers, raise chickens
and pigs and go hunting in the forest," said Yulius Loni, a 26-
year-old farmer from Banjur village, 250 km from Ketapang. Also,
farmers usually exchange their rubber for salted fish.
As for necessities such as sugar, salt and cigarettes, these
are bought from a tauke (village merchant). Although the prices
of these items have soared, the farmers are not feeling the
impact of the hikes because their rubber has also risen in price.
"Before the crisis set in, rubber cost Rp 1,500 a kilo in our
village. Now it is Rp 2,500. Prior to the crisis, a kilo of sugar
cost Rp 1,500 and now it is Rp 2,500. So, irrespective of the
crisis, a kilo of sugar remains equal to a kilo of rubber," said
Remigius, a farmer and rubber tapper.
The above is what is happening to Dayak farmers in rural areas
of West Kalimantan. How they are faring is typical of people in
many areas of Kalimantan because most farmers in the four
provinces till the land and tap rubber. Practically every
household has a rubber holding, the only exception being those
people whose land has been appropriated by plantation companies.
People work on their land to ensure they and their families have
sufficient supplies of rice every year. They use the income from
rubber to buy other necessities.
Over the years rubber has become the backbone of most farmers'
livelihood. In Banjur, for example, 10 people from 60 families
have paid for their university degrees with income earned from
rubber. Their parents relied on rubber to support them
financially from their elementary school to university. In
Simpang Hulu subdistrict in Ketapang district, there are now some
100 university graduates from farming families. Most of their
parents are also rubber tappers.
According to P. Zacharias Lintas, a farmer's son and Catholic
priest, the increase in the price of rubber indicates that the
foundations of the local people's economy is strong. He agrees
with Mubyarto, a professor of rural economics at Gadjah Mada
University in Yogyakarta, who has long called for the development
of a people's economy.
But a growing trend in Kalimantan is that many farmers have to
turn their rubber plantations into oil palm plantations and
change from rubber tappers into palm growers.
Zacharias opposes this. "People's rubber plantations must be
fostered and developed. It is wrong to turn them into oil palm
growers. These farmers are skilled at planting and tapping rubber
because this skill has been passed on from one generation to
another," he said.