Dynamics of Landlessness and Share Tenancy

Table 7 below shows figures of another kind of landlessness, namely ‘landless-tenants’. This Table indicates down-up-down trends of ‘landless- tenants’ in Indonesia between 1963-2003; although it shows a trend of declining number of ‘landless-tenants’ since 1983. The concept of ‘landless- tenants’ refers to a farm household that controls land (peasant landholder) as

a sharecropping tenant only and does not own any additional land. Here we can identify three kind of peasant landholders based on their relationship with the cultivated land: (1) ‘owner-operator only’ is peasant who owned land and only cultivate it; (2) ‘owner operator cum-tenant’ is peasant who cultivate their owned land and other’s land on sharecropping basis; and (3) ‘landless-tenant’. 65

Table 7. Distribution of the Operator Status of Peasant Landholders,

1963-2003

1973 1983 2003 Status of Peasant Landholders

(%) (%) (%) Owner-operators only

64.1 74.8 69.3 70.5 Owner operators plus share croppers

29.1 22.1 25.3 26.1 (‘owner-operator cum-tenant’)

‘Landless-tenants’ 6.8 3.2 5.4 3.4

[Total number of ‘landless tenant’ households] (million)

Calculated from the results of Agricultural Censuses of 1963, 1973, 1983, 1993 and 2003 (Biro Pusat Statistik 1963, Table 3; 1975, Table 7; 1985b, Table 15; 1995, Table 17; and data of 2003 Agricultural Census accessed directly at the BPS Jakarta office, 08 September 2008)

Note: *) Because data of total number of farm households is not available in the 1963 Agricultural Census, we cannot calculate the percentages of ‘landless-tenant’ households compared to the total number of farm households (Table 3 above) for this period

In 1963 the proportion of ‘landless-tenants’ was still 6.8% of the total landholders, but by 1973 it had decreased to 3.2%. Indeed, this was partly due to the land reform program, carried out during 1961-1965 in Java and until the edge of 1960s outside Java. The land reform program, based on the principle of “land to the tillers”, made land distribution to share-croppers the

Six Decades of Inequality Six Decades of Inequality

was a sharp increase (almost double) in the number of ‘ landless-tenants’ in absolute terms and/or in relative terms. This is undoubtedly caused by several factors. Firstly, the increase, even small, in the total area of agricultural land (around 2.6 million hectar, see Table 3); but the increase of the total number of peasant households is small too (only increased for 2.2 million, see Table 3). Secondly, the increase in the number of peasant landholders particularly in the class of landholdings 1 to 5 hectares (shown more detail in Table 8 below), which is actually caused by the growth of the land tenancy market rather than an increase in land ownership. We can assume, then, the increasing number of ‘landless-tenants’ in this period (1973-1983) was contributed to the decrease of total number and proportion of the ‘absolute-landless’ (see Table 3); although from the available macro data we cannot calculate how big this contribution. However, the imbalance in the increasing of the total number of peasant households and the total area of agricultural land, added by the large number of small peasants released their land, actually were created the landholdings structure in this period (1973-1983) more inequal. Gini ratio in the 1983 is bigger than 1973 and the average land holds in this period is also decreased. 67

There is obviously a connection here with ‘the end’ of (interupted) land reform program in the early 1970s. Land redistribution was relied on the transmigration program only that redistributed the claimed ‘state land’, but at the same time there are no serious attempts to prevent and forbid practically the trend of agricultural land concentration. Consequently, the transmigration program’s land distribution has no significant impact to change the picture of the unequal land distribution structure. Mechanism to own the agricultural land then was mostly based on ‘market forces’, such as land trading transactions or mortgaging, in which the small peasants who faced difficulties on production tend to dispose their land in this open arena.

At the same time, by 1983 the green revolution had been going on for more than 15 years. A number of studies show that the program had sinificant contribution to the concentrations of land holdings. Green revolution program that relied on the use new agricultural technology was increased the farmer’s production costs and created farmer’s dependency to the credit for production. Small peasants will dispose their land ownership when they burdened by the increase of production costs and accumulation of the credit (see, for instance,

Dynamics of Landlessness and Share Tenancy