Young Farmers’ Access to Land: Gendered Pathways into and Out of Farming in Nigara and Langkap (West Manggarai, Indonesia)

Abstract

This chapter describes rural young men and women’s pathways out of and (back) into farming in two villages in West Manggarai district, Flores island, Eastern Indonesia. The chapter has seven sections. First, we describe the methodology and our sample in the two sites. The second section then provides the geographical and social context and describes livelihood patterns in the research villages. Next, we present illustrative cases of young people’s pathways out of and (back) into farming, both young men and women, followed by an account of the tensions arising through the process of land transfer between generations in the fourth section. The fifth and sixth sections focus on young people’s farming practices and how the government supports young farmers. In the final section, we reflect on how gender, generation, and class combine to shape the pathways of young farmers out of and (back) into farming and their access to agrarian resources.

Introduction

This chapter describes rural young men and women’s pathways out of and (back) into farming in two villages in West Manggarai district, Flores island, Eastern Indonesia. The chapter has seven sections. First, we describe the methodology and our sample in the two sites. The second section then provides the geographical and social context and describes livelihood patterns in the research villages. Next, we present illustrative cases of young people’s pathways out of and (back) into farming, both young men and women, followed by an account of the tensions arising through the process of land transfer between generations in the fourth section. The fifth and sixth sections focus on young people’s farming practices and how the government supports young farmers. In the final section, we reflect on how gender, generation, and class combine to shape the pathways of young farmers out of and (back) into farming and their access to agrarian resources.

In West Manggarai, social structures are organized patrilineally and inhabitants practise village exogamy; with very few exceptions, land is inherited only by sons or male relatives, and when women marry, they move to their husband’s village. In this respect, the situation is more similar to the Indian case-study villages than to the other (Javanese) villages described in this book.

Methodology

This chapter is based on the authors’ field research conducted during August and September 2017¹ in Nigara village (Lembor sub-district) and Langkap village (Mbeliling sub-district), West Manggarai (see Fig. 12.1).² Both are agricultural villages but differ in a number of important respects, making for a stimulating comparison. Langkap is the larger of the two locales. It is located relatively near the port of Labuan Bajo and due to its stunning views, Langkap has been targeted by tourism investment. Nigara village offers an interesting land settlement situation as it combines both lowland (rice producing) and upland cultivated areas (e.g., candlenuts).

Fig. 12.1

The location of Nigara and Langkap (West Manggarai, Flores Island, East Nusa Tenggara)

Our data collection was based on qualitative techniques, and we interviewed 50 young farmers (32 young women and 18 young men). The life-history method inspired the semi-structured interviews, leading us to focus on key moments over the life course in the process of becoming a young farmer. For the duration of the fieldwork, the research team lived at the field sites. This enabled us to complement the interview-based method with participant observation by taking part in everyday activities; staying in the village also helped to generate rapport, which allowed us to discuss delicate topics such as land inheritance.

Across the two villages, we identified interviewees through snowballing. We were introduced to the first young farmer respondents with the help of a village official and an active member of the local farmers’ group. These initial respondents then helped us to identify further respondents, and so on. We also interviewed several parents of our young farmer respondents to obtain information on intergenerational changes in farming practices and transfers of resources and farming knowledge.

In the case of married young farmer couples, we tried to interview both husband and wife. The depth of information obtained varies from case to case. While women work in almost all stages of farming, they do not own the land. Sometimes we encountered awkward situations when speaking to women about land inheritance as they were hesitant to talk about their husbands and in-laws.

Who Are the Young Farmers?

Almost all of our young farmer respondents, both men and women, are “continuers,” who grew up in farming households and have experience helping with farm duties in their childhood (Monllor 2012; White 2018, 708). Some have a history of engaging in non-farm activities before returning to farming and inheriting agrarian resources while others have taken over the farming activities and resources from the older generation without any off-the-farm experience. Next to these young continuer farmers, we met one (female) respondent who could be called a “newcomer”; growing up in a coastal village, she did not have any farming experience before marriage. For continuer young farmers, the intergenerational transfer of resources is key in the process of becoming a farmer. As further explained below, such transfers never unfold in a uniform manner as they are negotiated through relations of generation (birth order relations between siblings or parent-child relations), gender, and class. Out of the 50 young farmers that we interviewed across the two villages, most are between the ages of 25 and 34 (see Table 12.1).

Table 12.1 Age range of young farmer respondents

The majority of our respondents had only completed formal education until primary or lower secondary school level. However, the younger respondents had greater access to senior high schools due to government policy on education subsidies since 2016. The majority of the young farmers that we interviewed were married (see Table 12.2). Most of the unmarried respondents are in the 15–24 age group. However, some female respondents who are in this age category are already expecting to be married and some are promised as part of arranged marriages. Conversely, none of the men that we interviewed in this age category plan to marry in the near future.

Table 12.2 Marital status of young farmer respondents

In terms of migration, only 10 of the 32 female respondents had a history of out-migration. They had worked in informal-sector jobs such as shop or food stall assistants or as domestic workers in other locations on the island (Labuan Bajo, Ruteng, and Ende) or on other islands (Makassar in Sulawesi, Surabaya in Java, Bali, and Kalimantan). In addition, very few of them had migrated to pursue an education; this is a privilege of wealthy families’ children. The other 22 respondents had never moved away from the village—for school or for work. The reasons for not migrating, they mentioned were: (1) family responsibilities to dependent household members; (2) marriage—a woman will live in her husband’s village; and (3) for some respondents from more remote upland areas of Nigara, the poor roads and transport facilities. In their spare time, most of our women respondents from this area still weave cloth to be sold in the nearest market or to middlemen.

Among our 18 male respondents, 7 had a migration history. Only one had left the village to pursue an education (university) in Makassar; the others were labour migrants. The latter travelled to other islands (Makassar and Pare-Pare in Sulawesi, West Papua, and Kalimantan) and worked in informal-sector jobs in restaurants, shops, as plantation labour, or in small-scale mining. Those who did not migrate generally worked as farm labourers after finishing school, work that they combined with non-farm income such as ojek (motorcycle taxi drivers) or in security.

Profile of the Fieldwork Sites

West Manggarai District is known nationally as an important agricultural region of eastern Indonesia, both for staple food crops (irrigated and rain-fed paddy as well as rain-fed maize and soya), horticultural crops, and tree crops. It is one of the more important rice-producing regions in this part of the country, and Lembor sub-district (where Nigara is located) is the biggest rice producer in the district.

Geographically, Nigara village is one of the largest rice producers in West Manggarai (on both irrigated and dry land) and also produces coffee, candlenut, and fruits from its dry land. Nigara’s population is 1874 with 434 households (BPS 2018a). The distance between Nigara and the district capital of Labuan Bajo³ is 79 kilometres and can be accessed by car or motorcycle.

Nigara has a unique settlement pattern (between upland and lowland neighbourhoods), which is related to gender and generation. Parents and the elderly generally live in the upland settlements with the younger generation in lowland settlements. Until recently, many children attended school up to the completion of elementary level (six years) in the upland locations where the Nigara State Primary School is located. Here, they live with their grandparents while their own (young) parents work the paddy land in the lowland part of the village. The national government has invested in maintaining and developing irrigation channels in the village since the 1960s. Some of the upland families migrated to the lowland, especially after irrigation massively improved yields between the late 1960s and the 1980s. Families who live in the hills for most of the year move down to the lowland areas for the seasons of peak activity in irrigated rice cultivation (usually for several days or a month). They then return to the hills for the dry land harvest season.

Nowadays, due in part to the construction of a new elementary school in the lowland area, upland families—especially those with school-age children—are starting to spend more time in the lowland part of the village.

In contrast, Mbeliling sub-district (where Langkap is located) is the district’s most important producer of tree crops. Langkap inhabitants rely mainly on tree crops such as coconut, coffee, cacao, and candlenuts, with paddy, maize, and fruits also cultivated. With its spectacular upland scenery, it is also a destination for domestic and foreign tourists. Langkap has a population of 1105 (BPS 2018a). Langkap is less than two hours by car from Labuan Bajo and is famous as a tourist destination due to its upland scenery and traditional cultural performances. Some of our respondents have part-time jobs as caci⁴ dance performers for tourists.

Table 12.3 shows the farm sizes among the sample. We define farm size as the total land area that the young farmer manages (whether inherited, gifted by parents, rented in, or share cropped). From the sample, the average and median land that the sample households in West Manggarai manage is slightly bigger than the government’s official definition of a gurem (marginal) farmer, which refers to a landholder with less than 0.5 hectares (ha) (BPS 2018a).

Table 12.3 Farm size range in the sample (hectare)

The majority of sample households in the West Manggarai site own land (whether through inheritance of privately owned land or rights to customary land) as shown in Table 12.4. Among the 50 respondents, 80 per cent are pure “owner” operators, farming land that is either inherited from or given in trust by their parents or held as use-right on customary land. Meanwhile, 12 per cent of respondents manage their own land while also cultivating other people’s land as sharecroppers. The sharecrop system means that two parts of the harvest are for the tenant and one part is for the landowner; the tenant’s net share is two-thirds, but all of the production costs, excluding harvest labour, are the tenant’s responsibility. Usually, in cases of crop failure, the landowner and tenant will negotiate how to share the remaining yield, but the tenant is still responsible for the production costs. The remaining 8 per cent of young farmers are pure share tenants. It does not mean that they come from landless families, but at this stage in their life course, they have not yet obtained land from their parents, and therefore they have to manage other people’s land. There is also a system of cash rent—paid in advance, unlike the share tenancy system—that only applies to rice fields. However, this system is rare, and our young farmer respondents cannot rent the land as they do not have the needed capital or cannot bear the risk of crop failure.

Table 12.4 Land access in the sample (percentage)

In the last decade, many families have acquired motorcycles as their everyday mode of transportation for travelling between upland and lowland areas of the village, taking children to school, and other activities. Those who do not have a motorcycle usually walk to their farms or use angkot (public transportation). Old and young women usually sell the family’s agricultural products, including fruits, candlenuts, cacao, and vegetables, in traditional markets near the city.

In addition, we still find julu or dodo (exchange labour) systems, which are mostly practised by women. This exchange labour is mostly seen in rice planting, weeding on dry and wet land, and harvesting. It is done in small groups of three to five people composed of family members and close neighbours. Women of all ages also engage in wage labour for planting, weeding, and harvesting. Men are usually the ones who hoe the soil, plough with buffaloes or tractors, and spray pesticides or herbicides. To reduce labour costs, many landowners have shifted from manual weeding to herbicides.

Gendered Pathways into and Out of Farming

Becoming an independent farmer who has access to land and makes decisions at every stage of the farming cycle is a long process. We asked all our young respondents about their initial farming experiences. As continuers, they have experience in helping on their parents’ land since childhood. At this stage, both boys and girls are taught to plant, pull the weeds, use the hoe, and even plough the land with a buffalo. Damar (male, age 38, Nigara) remembers the time that his older sister taught him how to plough the land, first guiding him on how to hold and tie a buffalo and then how to direct the animal. Apart from farming, all respondents were also assigned household chores such as fetching water, washing, cooking (for girls), collecting firewood, taking animals to graze or bathe, and cleaning the house. Meanwhile, the eldest daughters are also expected to take care of younger siblings.

When helping on the land as children, parents sometimes offered pocket money to increase motivation. Sesil (female, age 56, Nigara) reminisced: “In my childhood, I used to eat from our garden like cassava, sweet potatoes, vegetables, and corn. No rice like nowadays. But my son (now 34 years old) had started eating rice since childhood. If my son helped me on the land, I gave him rice mixed with cassava and he was happy.”

Farming at a young age is a fun memory if done together with peers. Sika (female, age 21, Langkap) started to help her parents in the field when she was eight years old. At school, she had a group of eight friends, both boys and girls, who reminded each other to help on their parents’ land. “When school was over, we would rush to the rice field. When we were tired, we would eat and rest. If I hurt my hand, we would take some leaves, chew them, and put it on my wound. When our parents came home in the afternoon, we looked for firewood in the forest. We would sing loudly, maybe the villagers could hear it. But I don’t see children doing this nowadays.”

Children’s work changed when schooling began to take more of their time. Girls in the two research villages are expected to focus on farm work rather than spend additional time on their education. For many of the young women farmers that we interviewed, their involvement with farming started at an early age. Our interview materials show that during childhood and youth, girls and young women were more actively involved in farming than boys and young men. One of the reasons for this is that in many families, sons are prioritized over daughters when the decision is made to invest in a child’s education. This was Jeni’s (female, age 33, Langkap) experience; she is the youngest of five siblings with two elder brothers and two elder sisters. Jeni began to help hand-pound paddy, weeding, and harvest using a sickle when she was nine years old. Meanwhile, her elder brothers were busy with school. After finishing junior secondary school, Jeni’s father forbade her from continuing her education at the upper-secondary level because “as a daughter, you will be married out of the family,” implying that her education was not a practical investment for the family.

Jeni continued: “We daughters cried when we had to stop school. My elder sister only completed primary school. At that time, my father sold a buffalo to pay for our brothers to continue to college, but my brothers refused to study further. And my father was disappointed [but still did not allow the girls to continue their education in place of their brothers].”

Parents expect their daughters to stay at home and help with the crops and the housework, rather than continuing their education, until they marry and move away from home. Sometimes they are also expected to support the education of male siblings through farm work or labour outside of agriculture. Migration for young people, both male and female, can be a means of gaining some freedom and experience and a way of gaining autonomy for themselves, for example, earning their own money until they return to the village.

Viska (female, age 34, Nigara) was unemployed after graduating from high school. She did not want to help her parents on the land and followed her cousin to Makassar to work as a house maid. Her father supported her because he needed money to support her two older brothers’ college fees. She remembers that her older sisters also worked on her parents’ land to support her brothers. Her salary in Makassar was IDR 500,000 (USD 35) per month. At first, she sent money to her parents, after that she kept all of her salary for her own needs; she says that at least she was no longer a burden on her parents. She was very happy to work and earn her own money. Three years after she left the village, she met her husband and married. They then moved to her husband’s village where he would obtain land to farm.

In the process of becoming a farmer, young people gradually shift from only helping their parents, to working on other people’s land, until they can finally manage and take decisions on their own farm. Nonetheless, this process does not occur uniformly or in a simple and linear progression following their increasing age. We found that some young people, still teenagers, were already making farming decisions on their parents’ land, including choosing which crops to plant. They shared the crop with their families and used their parents’ capital. Belen is an example of a young teenager who earns wages as a farm labourer on par with adults and makes decisions about crop choice in the family’s home garden.

Belen (female, age 14, Langkap) is in the second grade of junior high school. She lives with her mother and an older cousin who is a builder. Her late father bequeathed a small piece of dry land to Belen’s mother. Her mother is always busy working as a wage labourer because they do not have a rice field and the candlenuts on the dry land do not provide enough money and rice for the family to survive. Belen often helps her mother as a wage labourer, planting rice and picking candlenuts. Belen is paid the same amount as adult women—IDR 30,000 (USD 2) for half day. She uses some of the money to buy books and snacks before giving the rest to her mother.

In her mother’s yard, Belen plants vegetables such as tomatoes, eggplant, and shallots. She says: “This was mom’s idea to make it easy for me to cook before going to school, but mom was too busy working, so I immediately tried planting myself. I asked for seeds from my aunt, I gave them fertilizer and watered them. Mom teaches me, but I do it all by myself.” Impressed by her initiative, her mother asked her to start planting maize in the yard. Belen instead chose daun ubi (yam leaves) because they can be eaten as a side dish and she can feed them to the pigs. Despite her success with her home garden and her work as a labourer, Belen wants to continue her education until high school, but she does not want to work far from her home. “I don’t know what it will be like in the future. I want to have my own money, but if I have to work far away from home, I prefer to work in the village. But if I’m only working in our yard, maybe I will look for jobs in town.”

Belen was able to decide what crops she wanted to plant and be responsible for cultivating the home garden, but she still has the desire to work outside the village. Meanwhile, young men have different options, especially those from relatively prosperous families. They have more flexibility to experiment on parental land and using parental money, such as deciding on a new crop that requires high maintenance.

Adi (male, age 30, Langkap) has been cultivating the land with a plough and buffalo, and with a hoe, carrying candlenuts, and planting rice since he was in the fourth grade. He did not continue his education after graduating from junior high school at the age of 16. As the only son who will inherit the land—both rice fields and dry land—he wanted to start farming more seriously. He tried to plant cacao because he knew of many middlemen offering a better price for this product at that time. He planted cacao in two locations on his father’s land—60 cacao trees in the first plot, and a year later, 100 trees in the second plot. He asked his neighbour for cacao seeds and he bought equipment from neighbours and the store. “I made the koker (polybags for the seedlings) just by looking at other farmers.” At that time, he got the money by selling some of his parents’ rice (before this, he used to sell some of his parents’ rice to buy cigarettes and for his own needs). Many of his neighbours do not own rice fields, so it is not difficult to find buyers. After several years, pests have damaged many of the cacao trees, but Adi is still able to harvest from the remaining trees for his own needs.

Marriage is a key moment for young women as it determines where, how, and with whom they will live and farm. In this virilocal marriage and patrilineal inheritance system,⁵ as we have explained above, married women work on land that their husbands own/rent/sharecrop. Vroni (female, age 21, Langkap) received a marriage proposal from a man in another village and they will marry in a few months. As a woman, Vroni knows that she will not inherit land; her own family’s land will go to her brothers. She accepted her fiancé’s proposal because he stands to inherit some mixed-garden land. He is 25 years old and works as a construction labourer. After she marries, Vroni knows that she will be expected to help her parents-in-law on the farm, although she still dreams of finding a job that pays better in Labuan Bajo. “If I’m not yet married, I want to work and earn money in Labuan Bajo. But if I’m married, what can I do? I will have to follow my husband. And certainly, if he’s often working in construction, I will be the one who has to help on the in-law’s farm.”

After marrying, moving to the husband’s village, working and managing the husband’s or in-laws’ land, young women are usually immediately entrusted to manage their husband’s land; the men will normally be occupied earning non-farm income as construction workers or ojek driver. Jeni feels that she gained confidence and more space to manage the land after proving to her husband that farming is not an easy job.

Jeni married when she was 20 years old and moved in with her husband’s family. It was not until one year into their marriage that Molana, her husband, was given some of the parental rice fields to farm. The young couple moved into their own house, which Molana’s parents helped them to build. Molana now owns two bujur (one bujur is 25 × 25 metres = 625 m²) of rain-fed rice fields and a little mixed-garden land planted with coffee trees, banana trees, pineapple plants, and a few candlenut trees. He sometimes helps on the farm but only when there is no work for him as a construction worker. Jeni recalls that in the beginning of their marriage, Molana underestimated her and was a little bossy, even telling her that he would teach her to farm. When they planted the clove seeds together, her husband said that growing cloves was easy, and Jeni could just wait until the cloves could be harvested. Jeni did just that and deliberately did not take care of the clove trees that her husband had planted. “I saw it as a competition, I do not want to take care of my husband’s trees, I do not pull out the grass around them, I do not cut the rotten branches. I only took care of my trees. Now my clove trees are tall and can be harvested, while my husband’s trees are short. I just want my husband not to talk carelessly and understand that we need to take care of our crops.” Jeni feels that she increasingly has autonomy to make farming decisions such as planting, choosing the crop varieties, marketing, and even managing income from the harvest, because she has proved to her husband that farming is not an easy job.

In contrast to respondents who grew up in farming families and could earn money as wage labourers since childhood, the one newcomer farmer in our case-study villages struggled for years to obtain trust from other people to be hired as a wage labourer. Leti (female, age 40, Nigara) was born in a coastal area in Maumere, East Nusa Tenggara, and had no farming experience prior to her arrival in the village. Since she was five years old, she fished with her father at sea. After graduating from high school, her sister invited her to move to Surabaya, Java to work in a shoe factory. Leti met her husband in Surabaya and married at the age of 27. After her marriage, she continued to work in Surabaya until her father-in-law fell sick and asked her husband to return to the village to work the land. They moved to the village, but her husband soon returned to Surabaya to work in a furniture factory, and at age 33, Leti is now responsible for her husband’s rice fields. She felt overwhelmed, but her husband’s aunt taught Leti about rice and vegetable cultivation, and she followed the older woman’s example. She recalls:

At first, my husband’s family laughed a lot because I often pulled out weeds very slowly, even slower than the children here. It took three years for me working the land before finally someone asked me to work as a wage labourer. At that time, I got IDR 30,000 (USD 2), just the same as the other adult women here. When I work on other people’s land, I have never been scolded publicly, but I was told at home by my sister-in-law that I need to work faster on other people’s land.

Access to Land

Lack of access to arable land is the main problem that young people face in becoming farmers, even if they come from families that own land and even if they expect to inherit land in the future. This access is not only an issue of land availability, but also influenced by their position as young people who the older generation do not yet trust to fully manage the land. For male respondents, becoming an independent farmer offers the prospect of earning some money, but when still working on their parents’ land, their involvement in farming impedes their earning money needed to finance their aspirations. As the case of Fian and his mother Theresia illustrates, this easily leads to tensions and frustrations.

Fian (male, single, age 19, Nigara) earns money as a casual labourer. His daily activities are casual wage work on others’ rice farms, helping on his mother’s farm, and occasional construction work. His mother, Theresia (female, age 48, Nigara), owns half a hectare of land inherited from her deceased husband, which is irrigated rice land laid out in two blocks. She works this one one-quarter hectare block with help from Fian and his elder brother Tomi (male, age 27, Nigara), while the other block is rented to a relative for IDR 500,000 (USD 35) per cropping season. Fian says: “it’s only been rented out for one season; I don’t know if it will be rented out next season or not. It’s my mother who will decide and let me and my brother know.” Fian feels that if he could farm his mother’s land, it would bring in more than the rent it currently yields. The other block usually yields seven to eight gabah (sacks of grain) each harvest. Fian cannot explain how the money is used because his mother makes all of those decisions. He and his brother participate in all of the stages of work, without pay, as the harvest is in his mother’s hands.

My mom said there was no one to help her, she said Tomi was too lazy and I was always busy earning wages on other farms. So that’s why she rented the land out to a relative. It’s true, I prefer to work outside as I get IDR 60,000 (USD 4) and a pack of cigarettes for a day’s work hoeing on other’s land. And I also get paid to help applying pesticides or fertilizers. I can always get work, especially in the rice planting season. I would also like to work on our own rice farm. If we did that, we could earn much more than what we get from the rent. But Tomi and I are just helping our mother. If we need to buy fertilizer or pesticides, I’m the one who goes to the market because I know what to buy. But the one who takes paddy to the rice mills or goes to the rice miller for a loan, is always mother. If it’s about money, Mamak (mom) doesn’t trust us (laughing).

Fian dreams of becoming a share tenant on another’s land but share tenancies on rice land are hard to find, and most landowners prefer to rent out their land for cash. “If I have to rent the land, how can I get the money to pay in advance? As a share tenant [paying the rent as a share of the harvest], I think I could manage. But for the moment it’s best to work for a daily wage. If I’m sick or sleepy or I want to have fun, I can rest. But as a share tenant, I would have to work even harder.”

Lack of land access makes young people aspire to work and earn a living outside the village and hope that one day they can save enough money. Young people tend to not have space to raise their concerns regarding access to land, either in their family or at the village level. Both Nigara and Langkap have extensive tanah adat or tanah ulayat (customary, community-owned lands), including irrigated rice fields, dry land, and residential land. Apart from the inheritance of privately owned land, customary land could potentially be allocated to young people who aspire to be farmers.

In contrast to our research in Java where village-owned land (tanah kas desa) is offered on a temporary use basis, in our West Manggarai villages, customary land is assigned to individuals as a form of ownership right. Women cannot hold these rights, with the exception of widows who, in some cases, can retain land allocated to their husbands.

In Nigara, there are 25 hectares of customary land in the upland hamlet that are in the process of being sold to a company. This dry land has never been used for any purpose and is supposed to be distributed to the local people. The customary leader and village elders made all of the decisions regarding its sale. Dalis (male, single, age 25, Nigara) is a returned migrant who previously worked on an oil palm plantation in East Kalimantan. In the village, he helps his parents on their land, works as a wage labourer, and sometimes as an ojek driver. He and his friends did not want the customary land to be sold, but on the other hand, people said that the land would be too small to be distributed to everyone in that hamlet. When the sale was finalized, Dalis received money as compensation—IDR 500,000 was given to each young adult and adult male villager.⁶ He used the money for clothing and gasoline for his motorcycle. His father owns 2 hectares of dry land, and as a son, Dalis is quite sure that he will inherit land. However, he has three male siblings, and he wonders? how his parents’ small area of dry land will be divided among four boys. Therefore, he decided to migrate again to East Kalimantan to reengage as a palm oil worker. He says: “With work like this now, (I) will not be able to buy land. Working in the village is like being setengah mati (half dead). You can work for a day, (and then) you cannot find work in two weeks.”

In both villages, besides being ineligible for customary land allocations, women generally cannot inherit land from their parents, even though they are much more engaged in farm work than men. As we have described, the established practice is that upon marriage, women leave their natal household and move to the husband’s village where the wife manages the husband or father-in-law’s land. Women who are married to men with land can manage the farm, but do not have a say in how the land will be distributed to the younger generation.

Even though Jeni manages the farm on her husband’s land, she cannot decide how the land will be distributed to her children in the future. She has two daughters, but Jeni and her husband want to have another child. “If I have a son in the future, the land must be given to my boy. Later my daughters can have land from their husbands, just like me (while laughing). But actually, this is not my land, it’s up to my husband because it is his land.”

A daughter can inherit land if her father and brothers agree to the allocation. Usually, the land given is dry land or a piece of land for houses—not a productive rice farm. If a father gives part of his land to his daughter, her brothers or her nephews can ask for the land to be returned when the father dies. One way to secure the land is through the use of a legal agreement, which the father, the brother(s), and the village head must agree to and sign. The daughter also needs to finance a small traditional ceremony to commemorate the land handover. This strategy is rare in our case-study villages. We found, for example, only one female respondent who could obtain this entitlement because she was born into an elite village family—her father is the hamlet’s customary leader—and he has plenty of land to distribute to his children.

Meanwhile, for young people, especially those from landless families, it is impossible to buy land with their income as wage labourers; land prices have been increasing rapidly in the area due to tourism. In 2011, a plot of less than 1 hectare of dry land with 30 candlenut trees was sold for IDR 500,000,000 (more than USD 40,000). Prices have continued to rise.

Sita (female, age 25, Nigara) and her husband Beni (male, age 25, Nigara) are a landless couple. Sita does not own any land because she did not receive an inheritance, and her brother did not ask her to manage any land. Meanwhile, Beni did not inherit any land because his father sold all of his land due to chronic debt. Sita only completed elementary school and then migrated to the city to work as a shopkeeper and housemaid. The couple married when Sita was 21 and the couple returned to Beni’s village to work as casual daily labourers.

After their return, the young couple won the trust of a landowner and became share tenants of a 1250 m² rice farm. From the 15 sacks of harvested paddy (15 kilogrammes per sack), three sacks are given to the harvest labourers, four sacks are paid to the landowner, and eight sacks remain for Sita and Beni. Meanwhile, the couple bear all of the costs for managing the land. From their wages, they purchased a pig and intend to breed pigs as another source of income. Sita also grows vegetables in their yard to reduce food costs.

Unfortunately, after three seasons (around 18 months), the owner ended their agreement as he wanted to manage the land himself. Sita says: “if (the land) is taken back by the owner, we cannot do anything, we have to return it.” She hopes that one day she can become a tenant again. The couple was once offered the opportunity to rent a piece of land but did not have the cash to pay the rent in advance. Since this upheaval, Beni has been spending more and more time working as a farm labourer and construction worker when he can find opportunities. Sita must limit her daily work because she is pregnant with their second child.

Lack of Government Support

Poktan (kelompok tani), the government-sponsored farmer groups in the research villages, were created to help solve farmers’ problems and functioning to channels the young (or older) farmers’ aspirations to solve common agricultural problems. The poktan is a government institution and therefore focuses on offering government-proffered guidance. On paper, every farmer (who owns farmland or manages a farm) is a member of the farmer group. In practice, the poktan group’s activities are limited to coordinating the provision of seeds and agricultural tools, especially in cases where the group leader is active and close to the government. For instance, even with the most basic problems like the provision of subsidized fertilizers—poktan cannot function as they were intended. These supplies are supposed to be distributed to each region based on a regularly updated database of farmer groups and farm sizes but the database is unreliable due to the manipulation of government data regarding subsidized fertilizer demand.

Umang (male, age 29, Langkap) is member of a poktan but is unaware of its activities. “Even though there is a farmer group, I still have to go to the city (Labuan Bajo) to buy fertilizer. It is difficult to find fertilizer here (in the village). Meanwhile, if I buy fertilizer from a different area, I have to provide my identity card, so I used my relative’s identity card who lives in the area.”

Likewise, the majority of young female respondents have never participated in poktan activities other than receiving seed assistance for crops like vegetables, fruits, and cacao. They only became aware of this organization when seeds arrive in the village and the poktan leader invites the women to his house or the village office to collect them.

At poktan meetings, the role of young female farmers is also limited to providing refreshments. Olin (female, age 25, Nigara) recalls being suddenly summoned by the poktan leader one afternoon. While the men (mostly old men) discussed the poktan plan and activities, Olin was asked to join several other young women in the kitchen and take care of the food and drinks for the men. In poktan meetings, the women never joined in the conversation or had the chance to share information about their farming problems.

Although they are much more involved and invested in farming activities than men, young women farmers’ work and commitment has not received the poktan leaders or the government’s attention. One poktan in Nigara received government assistance in the form of onion seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides. The district agricultural officer asked the poktan members to plant the onions and report on their progress. One member offered a part of his land as a lahan percontohan (demonstration plot). Young women, though, were the ones who planted, watered, and sprayed the test plot. Olin and Sita are among those who received daily wages for its care but neither know about the yield or how the income from the plot will be divided.

In addition, petugas penyuluh lapangan (government-employed agricultural extension worker) is often too busy with administrative matters to try to understand farmers’ daily problems. Farmers need to discuss and share farming techniques, including pest eradication options. Unfortunately, middlemen and input providers who profit from the sale of pesticides have subsumed this role. As a result, farming practices (especially for rice crops) are becoming increasingly unfriendly to the environment.

Hedi (male, age 38, Langkap) always asks middlemen if he needs advice on pest eradication or plant diseases:

I have never received farming assistance from the government. I heard that there are field extension workers, but I have never met them. So, I trust the middleman. If he recommends some brands for particular pests, I just buy them. I can also borrow money from him, but there will be interest. If I pay in three months, the interest is only 5 per cent for all. Later, the interest will increase if you borrow the money longer… we work (as a farmer) like a fighter.

Farming Practices and Dependence on Debt

As explained earlier, West Manggarai is one of the biggest rice producers in eastern Indonesia. For decades, there has been a substantial increase in the use of industrial fertilizers and other agricultural inputs to increase productivity. Chronic pest infestation is an acute problem and contributes to make farming unattractive to the younger generation. Coupled with the lack of support from petugas penyuluh lapangan (field extension workers) and an increasing reliance on inputs suppliers, farmers are facing increasing pressure to spend more on costly industrial inputs and entering chronic debt in much greater numbers than the previous generation.

The changes in farming practices include the use of herbicides that replace exchange labour, massive fertilizer usage, and the excessive use of pesticides that are no longer effective in eradicating pests. All respondents, except those from prosperous families, take loans from rice millers to finance the production process, and sometimes for their daily needs.

Damar (male, age 37, Nigara) started farming after his marriage at age 18. At that time, his father already used pesticides, especially for wereng batang coklat (brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens). However, since the 2000s, the pest infestations were no longer responding to eradication attempts. He says: “Pests are getting worse and ruining my land. I use pesticides more often than before… I have to spray pesticides eight times per season (one season on a rice farm is equal to four months).”

Currently, he borrows his working capital from the rice mill owner. He purchases his farming inputs and equipment—fertilizer, pesticides, sacks, and farming tools—from the same source. Damar will sell harvested paddy to the rice miller, taking only one sack of rice home; he will borrow rice from the rice miller if supplies at home run out. The following season’s harvest will pay off that season’s debts.

Those who can borrow from middlemen or rice millers are farmers who own or manage land. For Sita, who is a landless young woman, she only dares to borrow a small amount of money and rice from her neighbours. To pay the debt, she will cook if a neighbour has an event or celebration.

In our research, we also discovered an intervillage farmer alliance that a national environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) supports. This alliance aims to bring back locally grown foods and reduce chemical inputs. The farmer alliance encourages planting different crops to reduce the villagers’ dependence on rice as a staple food. The alliance’s members are largely men, young and old, who are active in the village government programme. Suitable for dry land and with relatively low maintenance needs when compared to rice, sorghum is a source of carbohydrates that the older generation grew and consumed before the government introduced rice massively in the late 1960s and the 1980s. Since 2013, farmer alliance members have planted sorghum in their yards and on dry land. It is consumed by its members, sold to other farmers, and the NGO also helps the men sell their product to urban consumers.

At the end of 2017, this alliance planted sorghum on 10 hectares of dry land offered by older male farmers who own relatively large amounts of land. Young male farmers tend to be spokespersons, communicating with NGOs and the district government throughout the programme and sometimes taking care of the crops. Both young and old women farmers in the village are involved as wage labourers to take care of the sorghum. In 2018, this farmer alliance invited local government representatives to an event to promote the successful yield and the initiative to support locally grown food. The attendees consumed sorghum together and a large part of the harvest was sold to urban dwellers with the NGO’s support.

Concluding Reflections

Through our in-depth interviews with 50 young women and men farmers, we have explored the pathways by which young people move (back) into and out of farming in two villages in West Manggarai. Land is the most important resource for farming, and we have shown how gender, class, and generation affect access to land. Even though young women farmers are engaged in almost all stages of farming, customary law denies them the opportunity to inherit land, except in exceptional circumstances. Therefore, young women farmers can only farm their husband or male relatives’ land. The role of the father and the brother and the expectation for the daughter to be kind and take care of her brothers determines each family’s land distribution decisions.

This study has also revealed two directions of change in young people’s farming practices. On rice farms, their farming practices are far from environmentally friendly, even worse than the previous generation. The positive initiatives include an NGO-supported farmer alliance that promotes locally grown food and aims to reduce locals’ dependence on rice as a staple food.

Our research found no government-initiated activities aimed at engaging young people interested in farming futures in this region. Parallel to this, there are no active youth organizations that could exert some pressure on the local government to provide support for young people who aspire to be farmer. Older men and landowners still dominate these groups and their decision-making, while young women have limited participation. This condition raises questions as to why there is little evidence of young people exercising collective agency.