Tangerang farmers just workers on their ancestor land

Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang

The sight of hundreds of hectares of paddy fields stretching as far as the eyes can see on both sides of the road always makes travelers forget the long ride to the northern part of Tangerang regency.

When it's time for lunch, the farmers gather in small huts in the middle of the fields and enjoy the view of the green fields glowing in the sun.

Although they feel attached to the land where they witnessed their fathers and grandfathers work, most of the farmers in Sepatan district, the rice barn of Tangerang regency, cannot claim that the fertile land is theirs.

"Well, it used to be ... My parents sold it in 1978 to a couple living in Jakarta. The new owner hired me to work on the farm. Now, we are just farm laborers, not land owners nor farmers," Mamat, 49, accompanied by his wife Sutinah, 40, told The Jakarta Post in a recent interview.

As rural laborers, the residents are paid only after harvest time.

"If the crop is good, I can receive up to Rp 500,000 (some US$49) from my employer for a rice field measuring 300 square meters," he said.

The father of four currently works on three of the 300-square- meter rice fields which can be harvested three times a year.

The laborers will have their second harvest season this year prior to Ramadhan. They will resume the third planting season after the Idul Fitri holidays early in November.

In the period between the beginning of Ramadhan and Idul Fitri, Mamat and his friends sell fruit on the highway.

Sepatan district administration secretary Edi Purnama said that 60 percent of a total of 1,000 local farmers were rural laborers.

"The local residents sold their land to finance their haj pilgrimage," he explained.

"Luckily, urban residents who bought the land from their parents still allowed them to work on the land and they receive shares in the crops," he said.

As most of the area is still cultivated as rice fields, Sepatan district stands out from among the other 25 districts of Tangerang regency in rice production.

The regency's agricultural agency head Nana Mulyana said that the administration had zoned Sepatan as an agricultural area.

In cooperation with a private institution in the Netherlands, EGA, the administration built a Rp 5 billion modern rice mill in Sarakan village. The facility can process 50 tons of rice a day.

Nana said that Tangerang produces up to 280,000 tons of rice per year from 70,000 hectares of paddy fields, mostly in Sepatan.