Poor farmers face hard life in Kalimantan

Rusman The Jakarta Post/Samarinda

Hartono, 41, puffs on a rolled cigarette while he plows the land. His wife, Aida, is working nearby, wearing a woven wide-rimmed hat to protect herself from the unforgiving sun.

At noon, they sit in the shade of a cluster of banana trees to rest. Aida dishes up a plate of boiled cassava and they eat it with unsweetened tea for lunch. After eating, her husband goes back to work, usually until late afternoon.

"Having cassava and plain tea for lunch is OK, we have survived on little else but that, cassava leaves and boiled rice for months," he said recently.

Hartono and his wife are farm laborers on the outskirts of Samarinda, the capital of East Kalimantan province. He says the land owner only pays him Rp 156,000 (approximately US$18) every month. If the harvest is good, the land owner usually gives the four-member family a sack of rice.

"A sack of rice and that paltry wage is not enough to live on. We have to make do with cassava leaves from our neighbors. We even search for wild vegetables, such as edible ferns, which we cook," he said.

Due to the circumstances, their two sons, who are 14 and 20 years old, are unable to continue with their studies. "My eldest son washes cars for money," said Hartono.

Many families in East Kalimantan are in similar situations. Based on data from the East Kalimantan Central Statistics Bureau (BPS), the number of poor people working in the agricultural sector reached 173,381 or 52.95 percent of the total number of 328,597 impoverished people in 2004. The population of the province is 2.7 million people.

Last year, 88,491 poor people were working in other sectors besides farming, and the number of jobless reached about 66,113 people.

The BPS classifies individuals who earn less than Rp 165,755 a month as poor.

Deputy head of the province's economic and welfare department Nursyirwan Ismail, said his office had made efforts to alleviate the situation, such as by providing welfare benefits with the money saved from slashing the fuel subsidy.

As many as 330,147 poor families will receive Rp 12,000 each from the total funds of Rp 47.51 billion allocated this year poor families. The provincial administration will also provide 18,736 tons of cheap rice each month to be disbursed among 133,844 poor families. "We hope that the provision of funds and cheap rice will be received by those who need it the most," said Nusyirwan.

However, Hartono and his family were not even aware of their entitlement to the money or the cheap rice.

Cassava leaves and ferns may have become their dietary staples, but Hartono says his family will get by, with or without government assistance.