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Wet rice cultivation in Indonesia Chapter six
6.6 Conclusions
In this chapter, we analysed traditional wet rice cultivation of Kasepuhan farmers and nontraditional
wet rice cultivation of non-Kasepuhan farmers. The main goal was to describe the
characteristics of both systems and to make clear what the differences and similarities are.
Traditional wet rice cultivation of the Kasepuhan can be characterised as follows.
There is only one harvest per year. This is only for consumption and not for sale. Traditional
leaders take the most important decisions considering the timing of irrigation, ploughing,
sowing and harvesting. The highest traditional leader called Abah Anom has a decisive
influence in this process. Sowing happens by laying rice branches on the soil; farmers
cannot use chemical fertilisers and pesticides; harvesting is done with a traditional cutting
tool; drying bundles happens on a frame with layers; storing the bundles takes place in a
traditional hut and threshing must be done in a lisung or hollow tree trunk. On average, there
is a yield of two tonnes of high quality rice per hectare. Throughout the year, there are
ceremonies on different levels, such as tebar before sowing, syukuran for the protection of
crops and Seren Taun as a harvest and thanksgiving festival.
Non-traditional wet rice cultivation practised by non-Kasepuhan farmers has other
characteristics. There are two harvests per year, partly for consumption and partly as a
commodity product. The family takes most decisions independent from others, except on
irrigation matters. Sowing takes place with seeds or grains; farmers speed up the growing
process with chemical fertilisers and eliminate mice and rats with pesticides. Harvesting is
done with a sickle; drying happens on plastic in the sun after separating the grains from the
branches. Threshing the rice can be done with a lisung or with machines. On average, there
is a yield of three to four tonnes of rice per hectare, of a lower quality. Lastly, selling the rice
can be a problem due to transportation problems caused by remoteness, poor infrastructure
and high costs.
Remarkable but true, many farmers of the non-traditional group have trouble in sustaining a
living. They are under pressure to sell the surplus of rice because they made investments in
the cultivation process. Rice is a commodity product in the non-traditional system, which
creates a form of market competition between farmers. At the same time, they need to
cooperate in relation to hiring labour and managing the irrigation systems. This is in contrast
with the traditional system of the Kasepuhan, where there is less competition between
farmers because selling rice is a taboo. Nevertheless, competition can also exist of social
status, relating to the number of hectares of rice fields and the amount of harvested tons of
rice.
Non-traditional farmers are active with cultivating their sawahs year round. This
means that the fields have less time to recover compared to the traditional system.
Furthermore, there is no time for non-traditional farmers to use their sawahs for fish
breeding or for a kitchen garden, which is in contrast with Kasepuhan farmers that have a
multifunctional sawah system. This implies that the products from the traditional field are
more diverse than that of a non-traditional field.
Thus, the commodity or non-traditional system does not seem to provide a lot of
economic welfare. On the other hand, the traditional system does not imply economic
welfare either. The traditional system of the Kasepuhan provides no money, but it does
provide certainty or social welfare. If anything goes wrong for a Kasepuhan family – for
example a failed harvest – it can always trust on help of the traditional village leader or the
overall traditional leader. As bapak Radi stated during one of the interviews in Ciptagelar:
“Participating with the Kasepuhan traditions and the traditional leader is important because it
makes life possible. If you are not willing to participate, it means you have to leave the
community. But then it is far more difficult to take care of yourself and your family.”
In the past, Abah Anom also used to help non-Kasepuhan families, for example from the
village of Cisarua. For reasons that are not clear, he does not help these families anymore.
Nevertheless, he still allows them to use the high quality traditional rice varieties in a non-
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