Dynamics of Land Conversion

Dynamics of Land Conversion

Over the four decades the area of people-based agriculture has increased (Table 4). However, the number of peasant-households grew faster than the amount of accesible agricultural land, and this caused average agricultural land controlled by peasant-household to decrease. In addition to the ecological- economic-political reasons for limited access, people-based agricultural land has not increased at the same rate as the growth of peasant-households because of the high rate of land conversion for many other (non agricultural) purposes.

Indeed, it is not only peasants that require land for their livelihood. Big commercial interests such as large-scale plantations, mining, forestry, manufacturing, housing, tourism and so on also require land. Moreover, economic growth and industrialization during the New Order administration prioritized projects, which have created the demand for land. Competition between these projects and the agricultural sector, especially people-based agricultural activities, created tension not only in Java, where the population density is already high, but also in regions outside Java. Ironically, at the same time, much of the land controlled by investors was misused or abandoned. While we are not able to discuss the reasons here, much of the land was acquired primarily for speculation. According to the National Land Agency (BPN), for instance in 1998, only 26% of the land for which ‘location permits’ were issued

was used in accordance with the permits; 70 the rest was abandoned (or tanah terlantar) 71 (Pusat Data Bisnis Indonesia 1998: 4).

Specifically, the wet rice-farming sector in Java faces strong competition for land with the extensive growth of manufacturing, real estate and development of new towns. The end result is the same: agricultural land has been converted to an increasing number of non-agricultural uses. According to Nasoetion (1991), from 1986 to 1989, rice harvesting areas decreased by 2.3% annually in Java: 224.,184 hectares of rice fields were converted into non-rice production (55.8%) and non-agricultural purposes (44.2%). While Sumaryanto et al. (1995), as quoted by Jamal and Djuhari (1998: 75-87), reported that in 1995 around

22.6 thousand hectares of agricultural land were converted to non-agricultural uses in Java. 72 The 2003 Agricultural Census data indicated that, in 5 years

since 1998 to 2003, around 65 thousand hectares of sawah (wet rice field) was converted both into other kind of agricultural land or non-sawah (around 80%) and into non agricultural uses (around 20%). Then around 29% of 42 thousand

Six Decades of Inequality Six Decades of Inequality

This conversion of agricultural land in Java, however, contributed to the reduction of ratio the national food supply and demand. In fact, since independence, Java supplied more than 50% of national rice production. 73

Table 9 below, which is based on various sources, shows changes in the size of agricultural land utilisation from 1963 to 2000. Even if we assume they are only rough figures, they show the dynamics of change in land use which in turn affects the overall structure of land holdings: The figures give some background to our analysis of land structure and the unbalanced relativities between agricultural land and the number of peasant households who require land. These macro figures can also help to explain why land disputes intensified between local communities and the government as well as companies who accumulated land mainly for business profit and capital accumulation.