Urban farmers create oases

Zakki Hakim, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Kampung Sawah presents a rare scene amid the jungle of buildings in the city. It has approximately eight hectares of rice and kangkung (water spinach) fields and is located less than one kilometer from the dense residential area of Kelapa Gading in North Jakarta.

In the green vast fields, farmers -- men and women -- harvest the crops, just like in an ordinary village.

Various people, from different ethnic groups such as Javanese, Sundanese, Batak, Minangkabau and Madurese, count on these fields for a living and form a diversified community.

Among them, a distinctive native Betawi man, whom residents call Engkong Haji Nuran, has claimed some of the land as his since the mid 1970s. For 86-year-old Nuran, farming is like a dose of vitamins. He said that his body would ache badly if he missed a day working the land where he grows rice and banana trees all by himself.

Residents concede that the elderly man is one of the hardest working urban farmers in the area, given that his land is the cleanest and the most well-kept. Residents say weeds do not get a chance to grow on Nuran's land.

Among the kangkung growers, Nur, 30, comes from Indramayu, West Java, where he also worked as a farmer. However, he has spent most of his time in Jakarta.

"We prefer to work as farmers in Jakarta because the income is better. I can earn up to Rp 60,000 (approximately US$7.30) a day," he said. Although the cost of living in his village is far below that in Jakarta, farmers' earnings there are even lower due to the low prices of crops, he said.

The leafy kangkung vegetable they grow is mostly sold at Kramat Jati market in East Jakarta, while some is sold at Cakung market, one kilometer from the fields, he said.

"We also usually sell some of the crops to door-to-door vegetable vendors who operate around the Kelapa Gading and Cakung residential areas," he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Unlike the kangkung fields, which are dominated by farmers from Indramayu, the rice fields are dominated by farmers from Karawang, West Java.

However, the rice farmers seldom sell their harvests directly to markets in the city. Instead they usually sell the rice in Karawang because they have relatives who own mills and who pay reasonable prices for their crops. One hundred kilograms of threshed rice is currently priced at Rp 160,000 there, said one farmer.

Kampung Sawah, which is located in Rawa Terate subdistrict, Cakung, East Jakarta, is surrounded by factories that the farmers say heavily pollute the environment.

A steel casting factory discharges yellowish brown dust that showers the area and coats the crops. Then there is the river, which locals utilize to irrigate the fields and which is full of lubricant oil, diesel fuel and goodness knows what else.

"I live close to nature, it keeps me healthy," said Nuran while his still-sharp eyes watch the dust flying above Kampung Sawah.