Kandar’s Self-Sufficient Rice Field in Maluku

KOMPAS/DOKUMENTASI DESA KANDAR

Rainfed rice fields in Kandar Village, Selaru Island, Tanimbar Islands Regency, Maluku, Monday (26/1/2021). Village funds help farmers develop agriculture there.

Village funds have transformed the face of Kandar village on Selaru Island, Tanimbar Islands regency, Maluku. Located on the Indonesia-Australia border, Kandar jumped from an underdeveloped village in 2019 to become a self-sufficient village thanks to its focus on developing rain-fed rice fields.

On Monday afternoon (25/1/2021), after heavy rains soaked the land, Efraim Refualu (82) checked his rice plants, which were about one month old. The rainwater intake would make the rice plants that were more than 40 centimeters grow tall until the harvest season around April.

I used to plow one hectare of land using a hand hoe.

Checking out the rice field, which measures at least 2 hectares, Efraim looked to the past to when he farmed for dozens of years, cultivating the rice field manually. "I used to plow one hectare of land using a hand hoe," said Efraim.

Also read: Small Dream Towards Self-Empowerment

Later, farming machinery was available thanks to village funds, namely after Kandar village received Rp 2 billion in 2020. This has made Efraim and other farmers in Kandar even more excited. They are able to cultivate a wider rice field than before. Some of the manual work was replaced by machines, from plowing the land to unhusking the rice. Efraim targeted to produce 5 tons of rice per harvest season.

Efraim\'s land and about 300 hectares of other rice fields in Kandar rely solely on rain. There is no embung (water reserve), dam, let alone a river. Most of the area of Selaru Island is filled with rocks, dry and barren. Locals grow rice on small plots of land in between the rocky land.

DOKUMENTASI DESA KANDAR

Efraim Refualu (82), farmer from Kandar Village, Selaru Island, Tanimbar Islands Regency, Maluku.

Kandar village secretary Berti Benjamin Masela said through a phone call that the tradition of planting rice in rain-fed rice field has been going on for a long time. Before the New Order government launched the “Grow rice, Eat rice” nationwide campaign throughout the country, the people of Kandar were already planting rice.

Also, it was long before political prisoners introduced lowland rice processing in Maluku, to be precise on Buru Island, in the early 1970s. Rice farming then expanded to Seram Island along with the arrival of trans-migrants from Java Island. Rice displaced various local foods in Maluku, such as sago, tubers, bananas and nuts.

Also read: Supervision of Village Funds Needs Strengthening

In Maluku, when not many locals were planting rice, Kandar had been planting it for a long time. Almost all rain-fed land is processed traditionally.

They need Rp 3 million per hectare despite results sometimes not necessarily being as expected. "Especially if there is no enough rain or it is attacked by pests, sometimes it can lead to crop failure," said Benjamin.

Self-sufficiency

The presence of village funds since 2015 has been slowly channeled to the agricultural sector. The rain-fed dry land farming is transformed into rain-fed rice field. The seeds are sown, then planted. Now, there are tractors for plowing the land, the planting machines, harvesting machines, rice thresher machines and rice milling machines that come directly to the farmers\' land.

Also read: The road of Life for Farmers

The harvest outcome productivity increases to about 5 tons of dry unhusked rice per hectare. This makes farming enthusiasm increase.

DOKUMENTASI DESA KANDAR

Rice planting land in Kandar Village, Tanimbar Islands Regency, Maluku, in mid-2020. Village funds are used to support the agricultural sector in the village.

Of the 20 farmer groups in 2018, the number is now 24 groups. The farming family which was originally 290 has now become 320 families. "Our village is self-sufficient in rice," said Benjamin.

To promote the agriculture sector in this village of 1,848 inhabitants, an agriculture vocational high school (SMK) was established. The vocational school has produced two batches.

They are expected to help farmers to develop agricultural innovations. Not only rice, they will also develop horticulture crops, such as horticulture crops, such as vegetables.

Also read: Building Food Security

Frans Luanmase, a village fund management assistant in Kandar, said that Kandar rice is now being sold to Saumlaki, the capital of the Tanimbar Islands regency, which can be reached around 20 minutes by road plus 2 hours of ship cruise. Some even sell rice to Papua.

However, the selling process is still partial. They plan to make the village-owned enterprises (BUMDes) as distributors. BUMDes will assist in the procurement of packaging and permits which are targeted to be effective in the harvest season next year.

DOKUMENTASI DESA KANDAR

Rice harvesting using machines in Kandar Village, Tanimbar Islands Regency, Maluku, in June 2020.

Independent

The transformation in Kandar\'s face made its status rise dramatically. Based on the Village Development Index (IDM) 2020, three independent villages were born in the Tanimbar Islands, namely Kandar (Selaru district) and Oelilit and Sifnana (South Tanimbar district). Previously, there was not a single independent village out of 80 villages in the Tanimbar Islands.

"The most interesting is Kandar. In the previous year, the village had a status of underdeveloped village, but now it has jumped far to become a self-sufficient village. Kandar is also not located in the city center like the other two self-sufficient villages, Sifnana and Oelilit,” said the head of the Rural Area Institutional and Information System of the Village Community Empowerment Office, Tanimbar Islands regency, Dessy Sabono.

Also read: Agriculture and Food 2020

The coordinator of the expert staff for community empowerment at the Village Community Development and Empowerment Program of Tanimbar Islands regency, Bernardus Turlel, added that this achievement was the result of the hard work of all parties, especially community participation.

Kandar village’s efforts to become self-sufficient should be appreciated. This is good news. Kandar, a remote village, should be an example of how to become self-sufficient.

This article was translated by Kurniawan H. Siswoko.