The patience and persistence showed by Belanti Siam’s farmers for 18 years has borne fruits. However, the success of the land conversion comes at the price of environmental sustainability.
By
Ahmad Arif/Dionisius Reynaldo Triwibowo
·6 minutes read
DIONISIUS REYNALDO TRIWIBOWO
Mardi Pranoto (48), from Belanti Siam shows his unfilled rice, Friday (29/1/2021). Great harvests in Belanti Siam and several villages in Pulang Pisau, Central Kalimantan, failed due to many factors.
Eighteen years since their transmigration, the farmers’ hard works has finally paid off and the Belanti Siam peat swarms have been converted into rice fields. However, the success of the land conversion comes at the price of environmental sustainability.
Belanti Siam village, which is administratively part of Pandih Batu district, Pulang Pisau regency, Central Kalimantan, has become a reference for the national food security project that aims to establish a food estate on the region’s vast swathes of peatlands. However, it will be a daunting megaproject as shown by Belanti Siam’s famers, who have needed 18 years to toil on the land before they could harvest rice.
Before being formally named Belanti Siam, the area was part of the designated transmigration zone of Pangkoh Unit VII. Heriyanto (43), a member of the Sido Mekar Farmer's Group at Belanti Siam, recalled the time when as a teenager his parents decided to join the government-administered transmigration program and left Ponorogo, East Java, for Pangkoh in 1982.
Like other transmigrants, Heriyanto's family received two hectares of land in the Pangkoh Unit VII. He said they had been excited about new land before realizing that the space was no more than peat swamps with shrubs. It turned out to different from what they had known in Java, he said. They tried hard to plough the land into rice fields, but the harvest always failed.
"It was miserable," Heriyanto said on Friday (26/8/2022). “In the first few months, there was still assistance for rice. Afterward, there was none. [We] ate just tiwul," he said, referring to a staple food made from dried cassava.
With cassava being the crop to give them harvest, Heriyanto's family and other transmigration dwellers relied on it as staple food for daily meal for years.
Amid the hardship, Heriyanto helped his father clear and burn the lands, which were either swampy or extremely dry and flammable. He said he had not been familiar with peat soil before.
He said the rice plantation did grow but gave little amount of harvest. “It was not enough to eat. So, [we] fell back on tiwul," he said.
Repeated crop failures forced some of the dwellers to leave Pangkoh. However, Heriyanto's family had no other choice but to stay.
It was not enough to eat. So, [we] fell back on tiwul.
In 1995, the government launched a mega food project. Titled the Peatland Development (PLG) project, it covered 1 million hectares of peatlands. Peat areas, including the portion at the transmigration zone in Pulang Pisau, were part of the project.
A fleet of heavy equipment was deployed to bulldoze the forests and peatlands. Artificial canals were made. Peat swamps were drained and converted into dry lands.
However, the project failed and caused environmental havoc. Dried peatlands appeared to be the trigger of devastating forest fires in 1997, which was reported to be the most severe in Kalimantan's history.
The 1997 fires were followed by another in every dry season, which gradually eroded the peat soil layer. The farmers who remained at Pangkoh Unit VII settlements persisted with rice planting.
KOMPAS/DIONISIUS REYNALDO TRIWIBOWO
Belanti Siam farmers, Pulang Pisau Regency, Central Kalimantan, began harvesting on Friday (29/1/2021). The harvest this time in the food barn village did not meet the target.
As what the indigenous people of Dayak did in opening land for farming, the newcomers burned the land before planting it with crops. “Every time we planned to plant, we also burned the land to convert peatlands into rice fields,” he said, adding that the canals, which had been built during the PLG project, helped land dry quickly. “The next thing we needed to do was irrigation.”
Rice began to grow but abundant harvest came only after 2000, 18 years after they had arrived.
Sujarno (77), among the first generation to come from Java and settle at Gadabung Village, which was formerly known as Pangkoh Unit VI of the transmigration zone, testified to his past ordeal. "For years, we did not eat rice because we failed to harvest it," he said. However, like in Belanti Siam, Gadabung’s farmers could now enjoy the rice harvest twice a year.
Dream for food estate
It was probably the success story of Belanti Siam and Gadabung’s farmers in cultivating rice on peatlands that inspired the government to launch the food estate project in Central Kalimantan. President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo carried out the first planting in Belanti Siam village to mark the start of the national food security program.
Hartoyo, a member of Sumber Rejeki Farmers’ Group at Belanti Siam, in a virtual discussion program on Tuesday (23/8), said: “At the beginning, we could only plant crops twice in one year. Under the food estate program, the government asked us to plant three times a year. However, in the third season, the crop failed.”
According to him, given the different geological conditions between Kalimantan and Java, it required patience for land cultivation to give fruits.
The development of the food estate in Central Kalimantan seems to be mobilized in a haste. A sizable amount of land from the targeted 165,000 ha for new rice fields in the former PLG project in the region has been opened. In Pilang village, Pulang Pisau, at least 1,060 ha of land that was originally community plantation have been cleared and are now turned into rice fields.
Unfortunately, it has yet to be supported by irrigation systems. Much project assistance in the village has ended up being abandoned, such as seeds, fertilizers and dolomite (lime to support the rice fields).
Riza Rahmadi, head of the Central Kalimantan Food Crops, Horticulture and Husbandry Agency, conceded that there were still shortcomings in implementing the program. Citing floods as being among the obstacles, he complained that the assistance provisions from the central government had stopped. “I hope the central government will not let it out of their hands. It will work if it is sustained,” he said.
The patience and persistence showed by Belanti Siam’s farmers for 18 years has borne fruits. The conversion of peatlands into rice fields has come at a price with the impacted environment, which already began with the failed first mega food project, the PLG project. It was marred with huge forest fires that ruined the peat soil layer and removed nutritious substance. Those in charge of the ongoing food state project have been urged to heed more on environmental issues.
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