Neglected Land that Support Families on Tangerang’s Cisadane Riverbank

KOMPAS/I GUSTI AGUNG BAGUS ANGGA PUTRA

People who have been directly affected by the economic impacts of the Covid-19 health crisis grow horticultural crops on Thursday (13/8/2020) on a plot of disused land along the Cisadane River in Tangerang municipality, Banten.

A plot of land with lush trees is found on the Cisadane riverbank in Tangerang City, Banten. The scorching heat on Thursday (13/8/2020) did not deter local farmers from working on the land.

Near the riverbank, Sudarno, 51, was watering growing mustard green seeds. He took the water directly from Cisadane River. Sudarno and several other locals began cultivating the plot of land that had been neglected.

The cultivation of neglected land is inseparable from the Covid-19 outbreak, which rages on in Tangerang and affects people like Sudarno. For now, he has been furloughed by his company and it is uncertain when he can return to work. He has stayed at home for 3.5 months. Sudarno’s friends also suffer from the same fate. Today, they rely on farming as their source of income.

Also read : Denpasar Communities’ Farming Spirit

While being furloughed, Sudarno’s office still asks him to work sometimes when it receives orders. However, this is merely temporary. After an order is finished, he has nothing to do. He rarely gets any call for work. Consequently, his family’s economy suffers.

Sudarno is his family’s breadwinner. His wife is a housewife. His two children do not work. One of his children worked for a while, before being furloughed as well. When he is furloughed and there is no orders for him to work on, Sudarno receives Rp 50,000 (US$3.42) a day from his office. It can go up to Rp 100,000 plus meal money when he gets called to complete orders.

“That amount of money is not enough for the whole family in a day. However, we try to make it enough,” he said.

KOMPAS/I GUSTI AGUNG BAGUS ANGGA PUTRA

A factory stands behind an empty field on Friday (14/8/2020) in Pasar Kemis, Tangerang regency, Banten. Local residents are using the disused land to grow horticultural crops.

Despite his meagre income, Sudarno said that the government’s rice aid helped his family. Moreover, he also takes odd jobs, doing whatever work his neighbors or colleagues ask him to do. However, he does not do these odd jobs every day.

Amid his scarce income, Sudarno was interested when he was asked to take part in cultivating neglected lands three months ago. Using his time to cultivate empty lands felt better for him than just sitting idly at home while waiting for work to come. As it happened, he had a little experience of cultivating land.

We have yet to sell anything because there’s not much that we have harvested.

Now, Sudarno keeps himself busy by taking care of horticultures on the Cisadane riverbank every day. With his friends, he cultivates mustard greens, water spinach, spinach, eggplant and cassava.

“We have yet to sell anything because there’s not much that we have harvested. However, every day I pick spinach or water spinach and bring them home,” Sudarno said.

Thanks to the vegetables, Sudarno can save money. The Rp 50,000 he earns daily from office can be used for other expenses as he get side dishes for meals from farming.

Almost every day, Sudarno and his family live on the vegetables from the neglected land. When he collect enough vegetables, he will sell them to the nearest market. The plan is to distribute money from the sales equally among all farmers.

Kompas/Hendra A Setyawan

An aerial shot taken on Wednesday (5/8/2020) shows farm plots on the banks of the Cisadane River. These small plots follow the winding river from Kampung Nawing in Sukamulya village of Rumpin in Bogor regency, West Java, to Tangerang municipality in Banten.

Asep Dani, 27, of Panunggangan Jaya district, Tangerang city, Banten, was also disoriented after being furloughed. Before, he worked on a factory in Karawang, West Java. After he was furloughed, he had no idea what to do. His wife does not work and he is the family’s sole breadwinner.

Asep tried everything to support his family, including asking his relatives for help. However, feeling that continuously waiting for others’ helping hand will not be sustainable, Asep accepted an offer to cultivate neglected land. Because of this, he can support his family. Every day, he can bring home vegetables and tubers for his family’s meals despite having no savings.

“I have received money from harvesting only once. My friends who started farming before me have received money more than once. It helps my family’s finances a lot,” he said.

Also read: ‘Social’ Farming of Bayu Sagoro

Tangerang manpower agency’s data as of August 2020 shows that 9,482 workers in the city has been affected by Covid-19. This includes 7,511 workers being fired and 1,971 other workers being furloughed. Considering these conditions, Cisadane River Waste Bank Community (Banksasuci) head Ade Yunus said that he was moved to cultivate 11.5 hectares of neglected lands on Cisadane’s riverbank.

Ade said that no one had taken care of the neglected lands. They looked like jungles of reeds and wild trees. In recent years, fruit trees, including papaya and mango trees, were cultivated there.

At the same time, the National Police has a food security program. They then helped Ade chop down the wild vegetation and open up the land. Crops were beginning to be cultivated in the lands two months ago.

KOMPAS/I GUSTI AGUNG BAGUS ANGGA PUTRA

A man uses a motorized plow to till land for growing vegetables on a bank of the Cisadane River in Tangerang, Banten. Many Tangerang residents have taken up small-scale farming during the region’s coronavirus quarantine.

At first, only around 5,000 square meters of the 11.5 hectares of land were used to cultivate crops. Slowly, more locals joined in. They were mostly recruited by their neighborhood unit (RT) heads). Now, almost seven hectares of lands were equitably cultivated by 18 clusters of residents. The remaining 4.5 hectares are left intact and cannot be cultivated.

Each cluster, comprising 25 to 30 locals, gets the same amount of land to cultivate. All in all, almost 300 locals were involved in the program.

“Some of them have never farmed before. We give them the knowledge to cultivate the land. We invite farmers and Bogor Agricultural University [IPB] lecturers to speak,” Ade said.

Also read : Young Farmer Finds Happiness

Other than planting crops, each cluster is also trained to grow catfish to diversify the types of cultivated commodity. In some clusters, fish ponds sit side by side with crops.

Members of each cluster are responsible for their crops management schedule. Cluster heads will schedule when to water the plants, fertilize them and loosen the land based on their members’ daily availability. Cluster members must routinely water the plants every day, be it in the morning or in the afternoon.

DOKUMENTASI YOHANNES AGUS

A man sows vegetable seeds along raised rows on a 1.4-hectare plot of land in Pasar Kemis, Tangerang regency, Banten, in mid-April 2020.

Surrounded by factories

Hundreds of residents in Pasar Kemis, Tangerang regency, Banten, also using neglected land to cultivate crops. There, locals are cultivating a 1.4-hectare neglected land belonging to the Jakarta Archdiocese. The land is surrounding by factories with tall chimneys. The green scenery of trees and crops is an oasis in the industrial area. The neglected land was cultivated since February this year.

The neglected land used to be filled with reeds. Locals and church leaders had doubts when opening the land at first, as it had become a den of snakes. “Eventually, we used the land to be cultivated by poor locals as their alternative source of income,” said Pastor Stefanus Suwarno of the Karawaci Parish, Santo Agustinus Catholic Church, who initiated the land cultivation project.

After the land was cleared, Romo Warno, as Stefanus is known as, divided it into eight plots, each of which is managed by four or five people. They come in shifts every morning and afternoon to take care of vegetables and crops, like eggplant, chili pepper, cassava, corn, peanut, galangal and ginger.

Usually, even before we sell [our vegetables] to traditional markets, our friends and neighbors have ordered them all

Yohannes Agus Sudarwanto, 54, of Kronjo subdistrict, Tangerang regency, rarely missed his schedule of managing the land. Since he was fired from a factory in Bekasi regency, Agus has had no other activity other than cultivating crops.

Agus, who has a wife and two children, can support his family by consuming and selling the vegetables that he cultivates. Furthermore, Agus and his group also grow catfish. The group has harvested vegetables several times.

They sell their harvest yields mostly to their neighbors. A bundle of mustard greens, for instance, is Rp 5,000. Once, they sold 12 corn cobs for Rp 40,000. Any leftover vegetable is brought home for their families.

“Usually, even before we sell [our vegetables] to traditional markets, our friends and neighbors have ordered them all,” he said.

KOMPAS/I GUSTI AGUNG BAGUS ANGGA PUTRA

Catfish ponds made of bamboo and reinforced tarpaulin stand in a row next to a small vegetable farm in Tangerang, Banten (18/8/2020). Many local residents have turned to farming vegetables and fish during the Covid-19 health crisis.

Money from the sales is distributed equally to all group members. Some is set aside to buy vegetable seeds. From cultivating the crops, Agus said that he was helped to meet his family’s food and financial needs.

Romo Warno said that the concept of cultivating neglected lands was in line with the National Police’s food security program. Therefore, Tangerang Police chief Sr. Comr. Ade Ary Syam Indradi once visited the land. Ade wished to learn how to manage neglected land and make it productive.

Ade said that Tangerang regency had a considerable amount of neglected lands. Many, however, are unregistered. He said that he had deployed local police precinct chiefs to make a list of neglected lands that people affected by Covid-19 could cultivate.

Also read: Covid-19 Pandemic Not All Sad Stories

“Police precinct chiefs will help village heads to convince neglected land owners to allow locals to cultivate their lands,” Ade Ary said.

Police data shows that, thus far, Tangerang has around 30 hectares of neglected lands – and growing. Ade Ary said that he had established farmers groups to cultivate one hectare of land. A group comprises 10 people. In the beginning of the food security program, corn is the crop of choice.

Tangerang regency agriculture agency head Aziz Gunawan said that his office had no data of potential neglected lands in the regency. However, data collection effort by the police has helped provide data that the regency has around 30 hectares of land to be cultivated. Aziz said that this was a considerable size. He estimates that much more land is neglected and can be cultivated in Tangerang.

Kompas/Hendra A Setyawan

The Cisadane River flows through Bogor regency, West Java, towards Tangerang, Banten, as seen on Wednesday (5/8/2020).

If more raw land fulfill requirements for agriculture, we can increase productivity at the very least.

Aziz said that cultivating neglected land could expand agricultural land in Tangerang regency. As of mid-2020, Tangerang regency has 36,000 hectares of raw lands, namely agricultural land that is sustainable and can be used to cultivate various crops.

This size of raw land is an increase from 27,000 hectares in 2019. Raw land in Tangerang regency is used mostly to cultivate rice and vegetables. Corn is mostly cultivated in southern Tangerang regency.

“If more raw land fulfill requirements for agriculture, we can increase productivity at the very least. We can resolve food shortage and reduce our dependency on food ingredients from other regions,” Aziz said.

Farming, which was relatively unpopular before the pandemic, has now gained momentum. Nowadays, people are considering farming as an alternative job.