MASTER THESIS RECLAIMING DIVERSITY: THE PRACTICE AND EVERYDAY POLITICS OF A LOCAL FOOD MOVEMENT IN FLORES TIMUR-INDONESIA

By Mochammad Subkhi Hestiawan

Student name : Mochammad Subkhi Hestiawan Student number : 880207574090 Study Program : Msc. Development and Rural Innovation Credits : 30 ECTS Course Number : SDC-80433 Course Name : Msc Thesis Sociology of Development and Change Supervised by : Dr. ir. Pieter de Vries, SDC group, Wageningen University, Nadya Karimasari, PHD candidate Wageningen University Examination : Rosa de Vos Date : August, 2016 Picture at front : Personal collection, "lonely Farmer" Bomberay

2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my greatest appreciation and sincere gratitude to my thesis supervisor Pieter de Vries and Nadya Karimasari for support, guidance, and patience during the research and this thesis. This thesis would not exist without your valuable direction and input.

I wish to extend heartfelt thanks to my family in Rembang and Bandung, Indonesia. To my beautiful wife Adhiti larasati and my beloved daughter Azra Denaya Imani, for every drop of love, prayers and blessing – both of you are my greatest motivation. To my parents Slamet Basuki and Imroatul Qudsiyah, and also my parents-in-law Laksono Budi Prasetyo and Yuke Triana Yuliati, and little brother Adhika Wimbardi. With your prayers, support and encouragement, I can overcome challenges smoothly throughout my study in Wageningen.

My next gratitude is to all Indonesian friends, family and student association in Wageningen for making Wageningen a home far away from home. To all MDR-29 comrades and lecturers: Thanks for all kindness, care, and love we all share together in every moment. It's such an honour and I'm grateful to meet and collaborate with the all of you in wonderful circumstances.

I wish to express my gratitude and appreciation to LPDP-scholarship (Indonesian Endowment Fund for Education) and everyone in Indonesia for giving a opportunity to obtain a masters degree in one of the best universities. For me, it is a life-changing event. It strengthens my vow to applied my acquired knowledge for Indonesia.

Last but not least, sincere thanks to everyone supporting my fieldwork: Maria Loretha, Romo Benyamin Daud, Jerry Letor, Puji Sumedi, Yaspensel, YCAP, KEHATI, Zefrinus and Adi Nugraha (MDR Alumni network), Petrus Lamba Awang (IBEKA-East Sumba) and all friends, family and farmers in Jakarta, Bandung, Rembang, Flores Timur, Adonara, Larantuka, Lembata and Kupang. Thank you to all respondents for the support, interesting discussions and information during my research in Indonesia.

3

TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgement ...... 2 Table of Figure ...... 5 Abstract ...... 6 I. Introduction ...... 7 I.1 The Theme ...... 8 I.2 Problem Statement (State facilitated food regime versus food movement)...... 10 I.3 Research Questions ...... 12 I.4 Theoretical Framework...... 13 I.5 Methodology ...... 16 I.6 Context Information ...... 18 I.6 Structure of Thesis ...... 23 II. The Trajectories Of Food In Indonesia ...... 24 II. 1 How Hegemony works in history of Indonesia ...... 24 II.2 From Jakarta to Larantuka ...... 30 II.3 The Recent Shift ...... 34 III. Actors And Power dynamic in Flores Timur ...... 38 III. 1 Flores Timur Society ...... 38 III.2 Adat In Everyday Live ...... 39 III.3 Catholicism In Flores Timur ...... 40 III. 4 The State ...... 42 III. 4 The Rising Of New Actors (Movement and NGO Consortium) ...... 45 IV. Farmer practice and everyday politics ...... 51 IV.1 Farmer Practice In Four Village ...... 51 IV.2 Farmer everyday politics characteristic ...... 65 V. The Contest of Alternativeness ...... 70 V.1 Defining food sovereignty versus food security in Flores Timur context ...... 70 V.2 Food security and food sovereignty contestation ...... 74 V.3 Revisiting food sovereignty, diversity of sovereignty ...... 76 VI. Conclusion ...... 80 Bibliography ...... 85

4

TABLE OF FIGURES

Figure 1 Map Of Indonesia ...... 19 Figure 2 Government Hierarchy ...... 20 Figure 3 Flores Timur Position In Indonesia Map...... 22 Figure 4 Jakarta To Larantuka Relative Position ...... 30 Figure 5 Illustration Of Plants In The Kebun ...... 34 Figure 6 State Representation In The Village ...... 42 Figure 7 Power Dynamic And Actor Shift ...... 44 Figure 8 Volunteers And Activists Of Yaspensel And Ycap ...... 47 Figure 9 Ycap Evolution ...... 48 Figure 10 Ngo Village Visit And Consolidation ...... 49 Figure 11 Locations Of Villages And Capital ...... 52 Figure 12 A Farmer's Typical Farm Homestead In Ratulodong ...... 54 Figure 13 Kawalelo's Settlement ...... 59 Figure 14 Pajinian's Typical Livelihood ...... 61 Figure 15 Abandoned Land, Used Land And Abandoned Tractor In Serinuho ...... 64 Figure 16 Farmer Engagement Map ...... 66 Figure 17 Flores Food Movement Petition On Change.Org ...... 81 Figure 18 Early Food Sovereignty Scheme ...... 84 Figure 19 The Next Shift : Multiple Sovereignty ...... 85 Figure 20 Multiple Sovereignty And Relational Scale ...... 85

5

ABSTRACT

Indonesia food policy implementation has been an arena for contestation among corporate food regimes and the food movement. The state facilitates the dominant discourse on food provision in Indonesia. The vicious cycle of food dependency stunts local food development and brings about many disadvantages to the farmer. The local food movement brings the discourse of food sovereignty into the action with an NGO as the initiator. The food movement and the phenomena surrounding its rise needs to be ethnographically scrutinized. Gramsci's theory of hegemony, everyday politics and related concepts – food regime analysis, relational scale and multiple sovereignty – help elucidate the emergence of food sovereignty as an alternative counter-hegemonic discourse in Flores Timur. Results show that the farmer is an active political actor in this counter-hegemonic struggle. Everyday farmer politics affect visible political action, such as the NGO-led food movement and official politics. Food sovereignty and the corporate food regime, facilitated by food security discourse, are interrelated. A single definition of food sovereignty is rejected. Instead, food sovereignty can be articulated and adapted for different contexts without losing its ground. Food sovereignty works best with multiple recognitions of sovereignty other than the one dominant state-centric vision of sovereignty. The diversity of contexts, cultures and pathways creates a natural hurdle to the corporate regime from growing further. Food sovereignty wants to embrace and strengthen this diversity in order to slow down the further domination of the corporate food regime.

Keywords: Food sovereignty, Corporate food regime, Hegemony, Farmer, NGO, Everyday Politics

6

I. INTRODUCTION

I noticed that food and its related practices are diverse, and there were experts that spent most of their life researching this diversity. During my bachelor training, I was trained as a food technologist and I found idiosyncrasies in the existing food system. I found that some food and food- related practices were researched about and used more extensively than others. I noticed that Indonesia has a lot of carbohydrate sources and other nutritious sources of food. However, only a few commodities are the focus of the government. Instead of focusing on diversity, planners and researchers are busy with a few dominant staple foods. As I have always wanted an alternative answer, I decided to dedicate myself to an entirely different choice from most of my fellow food technologist friends. I served in the community empowerment sector and saw for myself the real-life problems encountered by the community in accessing food. My job brought me closer to farmers and communities in remote areas. I realized that there is another dimension happening in the field, different from what experts suspected in the ivory tower of planning: consumer choice, taste preference and convenience.

During my work in an non-government organization (NGO), I realized that farmers and communities are not passive development objects. Rather, they are social actors with capabilities, knowledge and action, and react differently in each situation. They have strategies and politics to deal with external interventions from both the state and NGOs. I found that a community shows diverse choices and preferences as to how food is produced. I found promising answers to my questions on bringing back the political and social dimensions of food.

In Indonesia, the political and social dimensions of food and its provisioning are rarely scrutinized. The technical and managerial aspects are always the ultimate answer instead of substantially addressing the root of the problem. This response leaves a 'black box' of unsatisfactory answers. According to my experience, real world problems cannot be resolved by only technical- managerial intervention, but require new points of view in addressing complex arrangements. Although food and agriculture are dynamic and complex systems, they are somehow oversimplified in policy issues by an expert. Oversimplification leads to the domination of a few paradigms and options. It undermines other actors and different views, which result in an unequal and limited room for maneuver and patronage-like relations. Hence, marginalized actors – in this case, the farmer – will look for ways to resist, manipulate, and adapt to the oppressive system.

In this thesis, I deconstruct the food and agriculture realm with a different lens, bringing back politics into it and problematizing the neoliberal character of Indonesian food and agricultural policies. I research closely on how a local food movement arises in a remote area and find notions of 'alternativeness' in the relations between farmer, community, and the state around issues of food provisioning. I hope that with this research, I can enrich the existing discourse about agro-food issues in Indonesia. It is not only to fulfill my curiosity but also to give the opportunity to respond to a series of failures in engaging marginalized actors in food provisioning.

7

I.1 THE THEME Food is a primary need and only later considered as a fundamental right. The importance of food leads to a vulnerable position in the face of abuse by those with power. Our way of life has slowly fallen into different forms of consent that have been voluntarily forced on our society. If we think that a certain type of food provision is superior to another, why are there were still food- related problems after all the resources and time spent in research and policy-making? The concept of hegemony from Gramsci is that political leadership is based on the consent of the led – a consent which is secured through a popularization of the worldview of the ruling class (Bates, 1975). Gramsci explains that the ruling class develops hegemony by exercising power in two great 'floors': 'civil society' and 'political society'. Civil society represents private organisms which consist of the everyday building blocks of social and political consciousness. Political society refers to public institutions like the government, army, court (or just simply a state which exercises direct domination), but with very different methods (Bates, 1975). In civil society, the ruling class convinces as many as parties as possible to adopt a consensus of worldview, through their intellectuals. Hegemony is created to the extent that the ruling class is able to propagate the worldview of the ruler to the ruled. If this happens, they have a mass of people with a similar worldview to justify the political society's securing of the consensus. When the creation of hegemony fails, the ruling class uses the coercive state apparatus to discipline those who do not consent, creating the orchestrated anticipation of all society in the moment of crisis of command (Bates, 1975).

McMichael and Friedmann boldly amplify the hegemony in food production and agriculture through the development of food regime theory. Food regime theory provides a compelling alternative to the linear and deterministic narratives of agricultural change that presuppose the ‘inevitability’ of food industrialization (McMichael, 2009b). The basic concept of the food regime is that a ‘rule-governed structure of production and consumption of food on a world scale’ (Friedmann, 1993a, 30–1 in McMichael, 2009). The food regime concept is a key to unlock not only structured moments and transitions in the history of capitalist food relations but also the history of capitalism itself. It is not about food per se, but the relations within which food is produced, and through which capitalism is produced and reproduced (McMichael, 2009a). McMichael explains that the first food regime (1870-1930) was a colonial monoculture regime, bringing cheap food and raw materials from tropical and settler colonies to fuel industrialization in Europe. The second food regime (1950s-1970) was a reverse flow of food from South to North as a transfer of US agricultural surpluses to the South began in the form of food aid (McMichael, 2009b). The global spread of industrial agriculture, marked by the green revolution, was embodied in (Holt Giménez & Shattuck, 2011) the third, corporate food regime (the 1980s to the present). Neoliberal capitalist expansion hence institutionalized the agricultural liberalization process on a global scale, by restricting the rights of sovereign states to regulate food and agriculture.

I was inspired by the work of McNally, (2011). He uses an analysis of Foucault's biopolitics to deconstruct each regime, finding that every regime contains traces of capital accumulation and potential for dispossession. He gives more attention to the latest mode of food regime, which is corporate agro-power and predicts the next emerging regime as accumulation by molecularization (GMO, seed licensing, industrial chemical fertilizers and so on). It is evident that this food regime contains the distinctive features of hegemony, traced through practices and articulated by experts and intellectuals into a powerful 'mantra'. Some mantras focus on improving farmer livelihoods by

8 increasing farmers’ ability to generate more income. The most common pathway is through the advancement of the agricultural process, namely increasing the quantity and quality of harvest or targeting a more lucrative market. These mantras are circulated in food policy by stakeholders in almost every corner of the world, even in the remote islands of Indonesia. There is no area immune to hegemony in any form. If the corporate food regime is defined as the hegemonic evolution of accumulation, its characteristics will be identifiable. McMichael (2005) argues about some aspects that emerge:

"… The corporate food regime undermines not only local farming, but also informal provisioning (wet markets, street vendors, and the commons). The fast food industry depends on the expropriation of home-cooking practices, and the global supermarket revolution absorbs independent producers and local markets into new corporate circuits..."

"...it extends affluent consumption patterns, presenting global integration as the condition for development/food security, it immiserates rural populations, including its labor force. ‘Free’ markets exclude and starve populations dispossessed through their introduction. That is, the reproduction of affluence through the corporate food regime rests on a foundation of social and ecological crisis."

These characteristics are followed by the emergence of different forms of contestation, resistance and compliance in the food movement, policy and everyday practice. The oppressive nature of consent created by hegemony is ignited by some of the groups discussing and searching for alternatives. If coercion is used to influence consent, visible political action, resistance and massive disobedience is inevitable. Hegemony fails to access civil society, if there is a critical mass that rejects or neglects the ideas offered by the ruling class. Civil society institutions such as NGOs, farmer groups or communities create their mass consent of the hegemonic idea of food provisioning through both visible and subtle action. If hegemony succeeds to the pseudo-tranquility phase, subtle disagreement can still be assessed by analysis of everyday politics and practice of some movements and groups of people. I want to examine the local food movement and grassroots level dynamics around the counter-hegemonic agenda in the form of subtle practices and everyday politics. It is important to challenge hegemonic dominant food policy, reinforcing the alternatives in order to survive day-to-day needs in the evolving arena. I hope this can help determine the extent of the effect of hegemony and show how fragile the hegemony can be when faced with the production of 'room for maneuver' in every level and form.

I.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT (STATE FACILITATED FOOD REGIME VERSUS FOOD MOVEMENT) Indonesia's food policy is heavily influenced by what McMichael (2009a) calls a 'food regime'. A food regime is characterized by these phenomena in the Indonesian food policy landscape: colonial agribusiness, green revolution, food price dumping, liberalization of agriculture and recent corporatization of food. State policy has been facilitating the domination of food discourse. The rule of the state-corporate food regime has been disrupting the nation's potential for a diversity of resources, a model of agriculture and natural landscapes. The dominant food policy creates vast inequality and gaps among people, thus strengthening the effort of capital and power accumulation. Indonesia became dependent on food imports and the global food trade, even for staples such as rice, soy and more recently, wheat. Indonesia fails to take the advantage of its biodiversity and tropical climate, increasing the need for imported food.

9

Although highly regulated by the government, food imports cause the instability of food prices. This instability negatively affects both poor urban consumers and rural farmers. In rural areas, food dumping and the agricultural modernization policy impede small farmers. They no longer can compete with food prices due to dumping, trade interventions and the limited diversity of harvest subsidy programs. Agricultural subsidy programs are designed to force the farmer to follow agricultural modernization-type policies. These policies are disadvantageous for the farmer, making them 'addicted' to fertilizers, chemical pesticides and machinery – in turn requiring more money. The farmer is forced to follow a mode of agriculture that requires more capital while the price of food continues to spiral down due to trade liberalization. The farmer who can no longer survive sells the land and joins wage workers in urban areas, which decreases food production, and makes the state even more dependent on food imports. This shows that the nation-state's ability to provide adequate food is vulnerable to the vicious cycle of the corporate food regime, and underscores the unquestionably important role of the farmer.

Under the flag of a food security program, the government tries to incorporate farmers into the equation. The government boosts agro-food production via a subsidy program for farmers, food aid for the poor and a regulated market. This program is intended to help the farmer compete and produce more, hence making them more prosperous. The government's positive desire though, is heavily influenced by multinational food companies. Instead of providing diverse solutions to different contexts and agricultural modes of production, the program only supports industrial- minded agriculture. The government implements the subsidy program with limited articulation and forced consent. Farmers must follow prescriptions from government experts on hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers and agricultural mechanization. If farmers do not obey the government, they will not get any subsidy. The farmer's voice and knowledge are neglected. Food aid is implemented by providing cheap rice for the poor, which helps them to some extent, but impedes the development of local food diversity. Cheap rice makes farmers less willing to plant a diverse variety of food, and makes small farmers' products less competitive. Therefore, farmers abandon farming, which then severely reduces food availability and accessibility, especially in remote areas – leading to more vulnerable livelihoods.

The government program only works for the farmer with vast and fertile land, and with good access to finance and infrastructure. The small, marginal farmer in a remote area never really enjoys the advantages of government food policy, triggering the formation of farmer classes in the rural area. As Li (2012) states, this leads to the piecemeal dispossession of small-scale farmers, unable to survive when exposed to competition from agricultural systems backed by subsidies and preferential tariffs.

Neither the food diversification policy nor the general food policy takes into account the condition of the small farmer and the poorest marginalized peoples in the remote islands outside of Java. In the eastern part of Indonesia, the rice policy has worsened the existing pattern of food as people become more receptive to the rice that they rarely would have grown by themselves because of limited infrastructure and harsh weather. The price policy does not work here because the price depends on transportation costs. The misinterpretation of food diversification creates a delicate situation among local producers. If they want to get subsidies, they must follow the government food program. For example, for the maize program in east Indonesia, the local government only provides

10 support if they use hybrid corn seeds. Local seeds and practices are undermined and labeled as inferior.

This condition fits into what Zizek (2014) calls the freedom of a forced choice. In this context, farmers have the choice to plant whatever they want, but the government gives the option of subsidies only for transgenic seeds, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which are sometimes incompatible with the local context. The farmer is forced to choose from only the available choices. Ashoka (2012) puts it as follows:

"Even as the government encourages people to eat local food, they have not taught farmers what to grow and how to grow it. While they introduced the transgenic corn, local corn was never made a part of the food movement. The farmers are left to recover their seed patrimony and to find the low cost, high nutrition varieties they used to cultivate. Most of the elders in villages still have some seeds and the knowledge, but the farmers have not grown these plants for a long time. The knowledge is lost to farmers and will be forever lost to the next generation if these practices continue."

I have several hypotheses relating to the failed attempts of local food diversification and strengthening of the corporate food regime policy. Food policy is based on political rather than social justice considerations. Food policies in Indonesia are not intended to deal with food provision per se, but to serve as systematic tools to accumulate power and capital. Food policy in Indonesia, evolving from the colonial era, green revolution, and agricultural liberalization fit with the historical and political trajectories of the dominant global food discourse. Nally (2011) categorizes those trajectories as colonial agribusiness, corporate bio-power and accumulation by molecularization. Accumulation by molecularization is based on the intervention of biological realities at the genetic (molecular) level, such as seeds and genetically engineered breeds, to serve the particular desires of capital accumulation. For example, a genetically modified seed that complies with certain herbicides, or animal breeds that can rapidly grow with a certain feed and vaccines from a particular company (Nally, 2011). Food policy in Indonesia is processed top-down and never disconnects from the capitalistic logic of food multinationals and accumulation of power from government elite. Food policy is affected by wheat imports and instant noodle industries, the engineering of hybrid corn, and manipulative rice imports and monopolies.

I borrow the notion of development from Goldman (2005), who argues that development operates on a fragile terrain and forms part of the struggle between hegemony and counter- hegemony. The implementation of food policy is on fragile ground, as there is always resistance and power dynamics at every level. On the local level, we can see the recent rise of local food diversification movements in several parts of Indonesia.

Food movements emerged in Indonesia after the Soeharto dictatorship fell in 1998 or after 32 years of oppressive and autocratic policies. Food movements and peasant organization discussions were under tight government control due to the paranoia of a Communist revival. Unions, NGOs and community organizations started to emerge with the opening of political space for agriculture, food, and farmers. One of the most influential unions was the Federasi Serikat Petani Indonesia (Federation of Indonesian Peasants Union, now known as SPI) along with its various provincial chapters. SPI has developed strong global networks by aligning itself with the transnational peasants’ movement La Via Campesina (Neilson & Arifin, 2011). SPI was one of the peasant

11 organizations with a bold political stance, rejecting the concept of food security as articulated by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Instead, SPI promotes ‘food sovereignty’, as articulated internationally by La Via Campesina. According to SPI (2008):

Food sovereignty for Indonesia involves protecting domestic food production through a trade policy that rejects free trade agreements on agricultural products and insists on removing agriculture from the WTO; enforcing domestic market controls; maintaining production subsidies; localizing food self-sufficiency; introducing disincentives for export-oriented agriculture, and implementing widespread land reform.

SPI's political stance influenced and triggered the organization's resonance towards food sovereignty. The contradiction between food sovereignty and food security has been heated ever since. Food sovereignty becomes what Bernstein (2013) calls the emblematic assemblage of the peasant struggle toward any domination toward their way of life. Food sovereignty has been criticized as being more political jargon than practical, but many emerging food movements have been flourishing since the bold declaration of this concept. The resonance of food sovereignty can represent two probabilities. First, the concept resonates with the actual struggle and has practical implications for the farmer on the ground. Second, the concept represents the view of organizations and groups who stake a claim on the legitimacy of farmer struggles. These organizations renew and adapt their vision in order to remain relevant to the growing discourse so their expertise and trusteeship towards farmers can last longer. Movements for rural democracy emerging from the countryside mostly mobilize around land issues with the support of urban-based activists (Bachriadi, 2009: 6) cited in (Claeys, 2012). Some among them establish the discourse of food sovereignty as an organizational core value. It is interesting to see how food movements start at the local level in places labeled as marginal, poor and backwards, such as Flores Timur and a small remote island near Java. This research is needed to see the responses of the beneficiaries of this movement towards food sovereignty.

I wanted to investigate the rise of a food movement initiated by local actors in a rural area. This local movement works to introduce local practices and commodities with the relatively modern strategy of the NGO/Foundation organization. Supporters of food sovereignty extol the success of this food movement. However, I wanted to deeply research the complex power dynamics faced by organizations and actors at the grassroots level, the response from farmers, and how they contribute to the food sovereignty movement. There is little study on to the alleged success of food sovereignty at the grassroots level. Other issues need further explanation, such as the role of NGOs in the movement and the farmers' support of food sovereignty. I argue that research is urgently needed on the practice and everyday politics of a local food movement and farmers' perceived impressions of food sovereignty in Flores Timur. This research contributes a fresh point of view and evidence from the field for implementing a bottom-up local food movement as an alternative to the state-facilitated dominant food regime in Indonesia.

I.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS The main research question is:

What are the processes by which the practices and everyday politics of the local food movement in Flores Timur, Indonesia are shaped?

12

The main research question is divided into three sub-questions:

1. How does the farmer in Flores Timur engage and articulate in the complex power dynamics and networks of actors involved in agriculture and food provision?

2. How is the room for maneuver of the contestation between the local food movement and dominant agro-food policy created in the current setting of Flores Timur?

3. How is the local food movement articulated and perceived by farmers in Flores Timur?

The answer for the first sub-question is provided in Chapter 2. The second question is answered in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 and 5 respond to the final research sub-question. In Chapter 6, the conclusion highlights the important points of research and the most significant findings.

I.4 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

GRAMSCI THEORY OF HEGEMONY I will use the theory of hegemony by Antonio Gramsci. He wrote about hegemony when he was imprisoned by a fascist dictator in 1926. He was unable to elaborate in a systematic way; only in fragments and dispersed notes in his Quardeni del career. Some scholars working with this theory examined Gramsci's document in order to unfold the theory. Thomas Bates (1975) explains that the basic premises of Gramsci's hegemony, force and coercion, were not the only ways to rule men – ideas can also be used. Taking the ruling idea further – and in a much more straightforward and suggestive way than Marx – Gramsci saw the importance of preserving the ideological unity of a whole social bloc. The aim is not to eliminate class struggle but to be powerful enough to suppress and yet allow a classed society to function. Gramsci has does not agree with Marx's notion that every state is a dictatorship, since the simplicity of the axiom led to significant political errors when confronted with fascism. He disagrees that dictatorship is the sole form of political rule. He proposes another concept: hegemony. The meaning of hegemony by Gramsci is "the political leadership based on the consent of the led, an approval which is secured by the diffusion and popularization of the worldview of the ruling class" (Bates, 1975). Hegemony succceds if it achieves some tranquility in the society. Bates (1975), rephrasing Gramsci's worl, argues:

"A social class cannot convince others of the validity of its worldview until it is entirely convinced itself. Once this is achieved, society enters a period of relative tranquility, in which hegemony rather than dictatorship as the predominant form of rule."

Tranquility is the ultimate hegemonic condition, although there are always contesting ideas operating in society. Ideas circulate in a subtle way to avoid the exercise of force. This counter- hegemonic political contestation happens in daily practice.

PRACTICE AND EVERYDAY POLITICS Kerkvliet (2009) defines everyday politics as "involving people adjusting, embracing, complying with, contesting norms and rules regarding resources allocation, production, and authority and doing so in quiet, mundane, and subtle expressions and acts that are rarely organized or direct." He suggests that the core difference between everyday politics and official or advocacy politics is that the former entails little organization, remaining a low-profile and private form of behavior, carried out by individuals who are unlikely to consider their actions political. Kerkvliet

13

(2009) further suggests that everyday politics be divided into four categories: support, compliance, modification and evasions, and resistance. Kerkvliet (2009) says that one of the categories of everyday politics contributes to the debates on hegemony.

"Literature on everyday resistance in peasant societies contributes to debates about hegemony. A pronounced finding is that outward signs of peasants’ quiescence or acceptance of impoverishment, exploitation, and the like cannot be taken at face value. Researchers find that often such appearances are facades hiding different, often contrary actions and discourse that grow from peasant's discontent and antipathy to how more influential, higher status people and institutions treat them. Peasants often harbor alternative values, visions, and beliefs for how resources should be produced, distributed, and used rather than accepting the status quo."

Everyday politics in the form of resistance can show visible evidence in the form of a counter- hegemonic movement, for example a peasant movement against land grabbing and a food movement. Another category can be indicators of a hegemony's strength of influence on people and how the people act by creating actions that contest the hegemony via an internal mechanism. Everyday support and compliance show that people try to comply with a more coercive form of hegemony, and try to find a way to save their self and community from the exercise of power. They also show everyday support to other contesting authorities that they feel can represent their aspirations, for example in electoral situations (Kerkvliet, 2009).

Between those two categories there is everyday modification and evasion, which include disobedience and manipulation. These include trying to cut corners without falling under the suspicion of, or hurting and intentionally opposing the superior. Kerkvliet shows how a combination of everyday resistance and modification can influence official politics.

"The phenomenon of everyday resistance and everyday modifications contributing to authorities’ rethinking policies and programs is feasible, although not inevitable in other situations in which political systems attempt to organize their livelihood, their religious practices, their families, etc. the political aspect of small deviations could be systemic. At first, the impact may be local, but if those modest variations are persistent and widespread, they can have national implications."

In this sense, everyday politics form an elegant and subtle alternative action towards hegemony and superiority. This concept helps to explain the practice of counter-hegemonic movements such as local movements at the grassroots level, pioneered by local NGOs and farmer groups.

FOOD REGIME AND LOCAL FOOD MOVEMENT Previously, I mentioned food regime as a hegemonic characteristic that evolved throughout history. McMichael (2009a) argues that the food regime interferes and transforms the mode of food provisioning of others, forcing them to accept the ideal view of agriculture from the regime. For example, the framing of local peasant practices as 'backward' and the forced consent of agricultural modernization and market engagement as the only ways to attain an improvement of farmer life. Forced consent and coercion in the effort of expanding hegemony creates discomfort and anxiety among groups who act differently. For example, the green revolution creates dependency and plantations create dispossession. It triggers resistance and manipulative action towards hegemony.

14

Groups in society show their disagreement and resistance in many forms, for example through a local food movement.

A local food movement belongs to what Holt Giménez & Shattuck (2011) calls the radical trends which are framed primarily by the concept of food sovereignty. Food sovereignty is defined as the right to shape food and agriculture, and evolving the notion of food as a right and the democratization of food system (Holt Giménez & Shattuck, 2011). The food sovereignty system as envisaged by radical thinkers embraces agro-ecology and local, community-based food systems as well as traditional knowledge. They believe that grassroots movements can scale up through system transformations such as dismantling corporate agro-food monopolies, parity, redistributive land reform, protection from dumping and overproduction, community rights to water and seed and a strong call for regional and local democratic control over agriculture and food systems. Patel & McMichael (2004) add relations with state policy:

"It also challenges and transcends the state as ‘the state has been captured by capital and the rights of small farmers, and the ability of small farmers to influence state policy (despite their numerical superiority vis-a-vis large farmers) has been abrogated."

The application of coercion force the weak to change their strategy by showing compliance and to support everyday politics and modification. They decline into apathy and or remain close to the hegemonic agent to survive. However, others relentlessly find alternative support and allies against hegemony. Although there is no one immune to hegemony, NGOs are the better choice. It is a choice between evils, but it is obvious who is the lesser of the two evils. NGOs give alternative hope and can play a significant role as intermediaries in order to strengthen weaker groups or farmers. In the section below, further explanation will be given about roles of NGOs and their virtues in the counter-hegemonic movement.

NGOS AS INTERMEDIARIES AND ACTORS IN THE FOOD SOVEREIGNTY MOVEMENT In 1980, NGOs became a major phenomenon in development, when the rising number of NGOs caused a significant change in the landscape of development, becoming the 'Associational Revolution' (Salamon, 1994: Hilhorst, 2003). The usual answer to the emergence of NGOs is that they fill in the gaps caused by the withdrawal of government control under the pressure of neoliberal reform policies (Tvedt, 1981; Hilhorst, 2003). Tvedt criticized NGOs as a functionalist third view sector. He explains that NGO development has to be analyzed as an outcome of complicated processes, where complex interactions of multiple factors are involved. For example, international ideological trends, donor policies, and agendas with national historical and cultural conditions (Tvedt, 1998; Hilhorst, 2003: 3). Although NGOs are emerging actors symbolizing alternativeness, this notion continues to be under scrutiny (Mitlin, Hickey, & Bebbington, 2007).

Mitlin et al. (2007) provide a framework to understand NGOs in relation to development. First, NGOs can be located in two definitions of the term 'development': development as an imminent and unintentional process also known as 'little d' development and development as an intentional activity known as 'big D' development. Mitlin elaborates on the position of NGOs in this framework below:

"NGOs in the sense that they are—whether as project implementers, knowledge generators, or political activists—all involved in intervention, but are also part of the societies and political

15

economies in which they operate: they are part of the little d development at the same time as they try, through big D Development, to intervene in and modify the nature and/or effects of the broader processes of this little d development. NGOs are, then, both endogenous to development (understood in its systemic sense) while often being viewed (and viewing themselves) as exogenous to it when they engage in their interventions."

The alternativeness of NGOs can be found in both definitions of development. NGOs are seen as an alternative way to intervene in terms of finance, project planning and service delivery. In 'little d' development, NGOs serve as alternative ways to organize an economy, politics and social relationships (Mitlin et al., 2007). In the second framework according to Mitlin et. al (2007), NGOs can be located as civil society actors in the tripartite sphere: state, market, and civil society. However, NGOs are a relatively new form of organization, whose emergence can only be understood in terms of their relationship to far more deeply seated social arrangements such as religious institutions, political movements, and government and transnational networks of various kinds (Bebbington, 2004). Mitlin uses the Gramscian idea of civil society to capture the role of NGOs. She broadly defines civil society as constituting the arena in which hegemonic ideas concerning the organization of economic and social life are both established and contested. NGOs work around this counter- hegemonic idea through consistently promoting an alternative to provoke social and evolutional change instead of mere service provision in the absence of the state.

We thus see the position and potential role of NGOs in promoting changes and alternatives. NGOs can become intermediaries of ideas of a better society. The characteristics of NGOs have potential advantages: NGOs are nimble enough to promote the winds of change. For example, in the food sovereignty movement, NGOs and transnational networks respond to the dominant paradigm of food provisioning. Via Campesina and Nyeleni at the global level drive the discourse further than before, while local NGOs provide examples of action, testing hypotheses and actively promoting the idea of food sovereignty. For example, some farmer groups working on agro-ecology or customer groups searching for better food systems sometimes organize using the form of an NGO. NGOs, despite their weaknessnes, are robust enough to serve unorthodox, revolutionary ideas. They may be loved and hated, but they will always evolve as intermediaries of changes.

I.5 METHODOLOGY This study looks at hegemony and a counter-hegemonic movement in a remote area by utilizing ethnography. According to Hammersley & Atkinson (2007):

"Ethnography as a research process based on fieldwork using a variety of (mainly qualitative) research techniques but including engagement in the lives of those being studied over an extended period. The eventually written product – an ethnography – draws its data primarily from this fieldwork experience and usually emphasizes descriptive detail as a result."

Ethnography provides details of the effects of world systems on local contexts. However, the contemporary discourse on locality itself is problematic. If local practices are continuously influenced by a globalizing context, determining and testing locality of our subjects become problematic. Furthermore, even if we can assure the locality of context, the next question becomes, 'Is the practice I found local or is it influenced by other discourses from the world?' A global world means

16 that we need more than a conventional ethnography approach. As Marcus (1995) argues in his abstract on the emergence of multi-sited or multilevel ethnography:

"Ethnography moves from its conventional single-site location, contextualized by macro- constructions of a larger social order, such as the world capitalist system, to multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the "local" and the "global," the "lifeworld" and the "system." Resulting ethnographies are therefore both in and out of the world system".

The conventional approach of ethnography uses and adapts macro theories to analyze and describe practices in the local. The result of this traditional approach usually shows the examining process, resistance and accommodation of the what locals feel about the displaced culture or process of adaptation, or simply their perspective before and after. Then, it examines the processes outside the locals, that maybe also influence them. It undermines the locals' capability to be active actors that influence their own life-world and possibly affect the construction of discourse elsewhere.

Another mode of ethnography examines the circulation of cultural meaning, objects and identities in diffuse time space (Marcus, 1995). This mode of ethnography acknowledges some macro theories and the concept of a world system but doesn't entirely depend on them for framing the context of the subject. Mobile ethnography leads to unexpected trajectories when tracing a cultural formation across and within multiple sites of activity that destabilize the distinction, for example, between life-world and the system by which much ethnography has been conceived (Marcus, 1995). Marcus (1995) argues that multi-sited ethnography is an exercise in mapping terrain. Its goal is not holistic representation, that is, an ethnographic portrayal of the world system as a totality.

Marcus deconstructs multi-site/multi-level ethnography into several points:

1. Follow the people

2. Follow the thing

3. Follow the Metaphor

4. Follow the Plot, Story, or Allegory

5. Follow the Life or Biography

6. Follow the Conflict

7. The Strategically Situated (Single-Site) Ethnography

This researcher will try to use "follow the plot, story or allegory” that might arise among the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic movement. I suspect that the local movement is the result of hegemonic action, through different from movements elsewhere. This movement also results in a unique intertwined relation among actors and history. In this research, I also occupy the strategically situated ethnography. I strategically put my study in an area where different phenomena are suspected to emerge. In this case, I suspect that a different reality will be found in an rural setting. My study will be a case study on the operation site of a local food movement initiated by Yayasan Cinta Alam Pertanian, covering Flores Timur regency. I trace back the food policy coming from the

17 capital city such as Jakarta or in the provincial capital of Kupang. I follow the story to draw out information of current actuality of the relationship in the field and connect it with theories about local food movements. The movement does not only cover different areas, but takes place across various farmer groups. There are several reasons why multi-site ethnography fits with this research. I mostly collected primary data (in-depth interviews) with farmers, government agents, project leaders, but also did field observation to observe the practices and everyday politics which emerged in the field.

This ethnographical study consists of observations, participant observations, and interviews on practices and everyday politics developed through the interaction between farmers and NGOs, and government agencies. It is critical to get information on their motives, knowledge and relationships. Furthermore, examining the socio-material practices and everyday politics. It is also important to collect information about demography, historical framework, and see the connection with the actual condition. Thus, documents and artifacts analysis will be used as well.

Observations

Before conducting interviews, it can be interesting to observe the landscape, farmer and NGOs themselves. Taking pictures and making a short documentary may be useful as well. It can help to defamiliarize (make the familiar unfamiliar) and to problematize the setting.

Participant Observations

Participant observation was conducted in some sites related to the activities mentioned above to help further the understanding of the practices of the local food movement. It is essential to interact, experience and look as closely as possible the reality where everyday politics and practices are generated. By participating in their activities, the researcher can give contributions to the movement, and also help the researcher to blend with them. Thus, gaining trust and also building a network which would be useful in collecting information in the future.

Semi-structured interviews

Semi-structured interviews were conducted to get the perspectives and stories of the actors both present in the sites or that are not present but still relevant as members of the network or principal actors of the context. Cultural leaders, government officials, policy-related actors, NGOs and scientists that collaborate directly in this discourse were interviewed.

Document and Artifacts analysis

As the focus of this research is the socio-material settings in which novelties are produced, document analysis may help. Thus, artifacts and manuscripts related to their ‘social life’ are relevant sources of information to develop this thesis.

18

I.6 CONTEXT INFORMATION

INDONESIA

Source: Indonesia Geospatial Information Agency (2015) FIGURE 1 MAP OF INDONESIA

Indonesia is located between the two continents of Asia and Australia, between the Indian and Pacific oceans, and perfectly lies on the equatorial line. Indonesia is gifted with the diversity and richness of natural resources. The country covers an area of 1,904,569 km2 and consists of 17,504 islands which makes Indonesia the largest archipelago nation worldwide. Indonesia borders with Malaysia in Kalimantan, Papua New Guinea in Papua, and Timor Leste. Singapore, the Philippines, and Australia are neighboring countries. Approximately 237.6 million citizens populate Indonesia spread among 34 provinces, with more than 50% of its population concentrated in Java and Bali (BPS, 2013). The characteristics of Indonesia shaped it into an agrarian country where most of its population are highly dependent on its agricultural sector for their livelihood, especially in rural areas. In 2010, the agricultural sector contributed 15.3% of the total GNP and employed around 42 million people all across the country. However, if we look at the trend in past years, it shows a decline in the people willing to work in the agricultural sector each year.

Indonesia as of July 2013 has 34 provinces, 412 regencies, and 93 city provinces (which are further subdivided into regencies) with their local governments and legislative bodies (Ministry of Internal Affair Republic of Indonesia, 2013). Since regional autonomy laws were passed in 2001, provinces and regencies have the relatively enormous power to govern their affairs. However, the legal system, foreign policy, financial/monetary policy and defense (including armed forces and national police) are still under the control of the national government. A sub-district is an area within a regency. The head of sub-district is called camat. A camat is a civil servant who is responsible to the regent. The chief of village, is called Kepala Desa and has authority over the local people by acknowledging local traditions of the area and is elected by popular vote. Since 2005, a direct election system has been used to determine the heads of local government (governors, regents and mayors).

19

Source: Indoadvisor.com

FIGURE 2 GOVERNMENT HIERARCHY

Indonesia has an enormous diversity of culture, soils, microclimate, food source and agriculture product. Hence policies in food agriculture must accommodate this diversity. The continuities of agricultural policy show that food policy has been moving beyond the fulfillment of basic needs. The Ashoka (2012) foundation states:

"The national rice self-sufficiency movement during the Suharto era were disastrous for Eastern Indonesia farmers. In the Western parts of Indonesia, rice harvest occurs three or four times a year, while in Eastern Indonesia, it can only be harvested once a year due to the lack of rain. The various nutritious crops such as sorghum, red rice, black rice, jewawut, and jelai have disappeared due to rice-focused policy. The government urged farmers to plant only one rather than having a variety of crops, The government builds absolute control over the crops and the inputs involved, leading to government corruption over the inputs involved.”

Rice is considered one the most important grains in Indonesia, and is a staple food for the majority of the people (Sidik, 2004). Policy on foods and agriculture had been over-dedicated to the provision of rice. Indonesia's rice-based policy has resulted in many non-ideal conditions for provisioning. Indonesia has the one of lowest diet diversification index among 105 countries (The Economist, 2012). Hariyadi (2014) argued that rice has become the dominant staple of people's nutrient intake: rice contributes as much as 53% of total calorie intake and 47 % of the protein needs. Furthermore, the rice-based policy has reduced the diversity of food and development of local food resources. This leads to more vulnerable livelihoods, not only for urban dwellers but also for non-rice producers in rural communities. Rural communities depend on their rice supply from outside producers. In his ‘New Order’ era, President Soeharto included food security in his economic development policy. Policies included generous state subsidies for agricultural inputs, intervention in markets for food staples, and the promotion of Green Revolution crop varieties (Fuglie & Piggott, 2006). Farmers were pushed to follow the national policy; even the military was used to enforce the green revolution strategy. In the beginning, the government supported farmers with subsidies, knowledge support and extension agents. But as time passed, Soeharto and his regime were unable to finance the objective of achieving food security through the green revolution except for rice production. At the beginning of 1990, under IMF and World Bank structural adjustment policies, Soeharto gradually reduced the subsidies and liberalized agricultural markets – except for rice. Farmers faced markets directly with less protection. They already depended on input subsidies from

20 the government. When these subsidies were reduced, they did not have enough capital to grow, and they lost their subsistence farming capacity. Moreover, the quantity and diversity of produced food was reduced, despite there being more people to feed. The government solved the problem by importing grain. Since many people live near distribution centers such as Java, they could get food easily. But many others living far from the capital suffer.

In the 1960s, the government introduced a food diversification policy to tackle the food crisis. It noticed that food diversification had several advantages such as being an instrument for poverty alleviation, careful use of natural resources, sustainable development, income growth, employment generation, and ultimately development of food and nutritional security. In spite of the advantages, (Karama et al. 1992; Siregar & Suryadi, 2005) pointed out that its implementation in Indonesia was sporadic and unorganized. Food crops diversification were under-prioritized while rice self-sufficiency was heavily supported. The government has realized the advantages of food diversification. Since almost 60 years ago, different laws and regulations have been produced, namely Presidential Decree INPRES no.14, 1974, and INPRES no.20, 1979 (Hasan, 1994) although none of them have been implemented. The emphasis of law was translated as staple food diversification rather than overall food diversification, and how this policy was to be implemented was not so clear (Siregar & Suryadi, 2005). The food policy during Soeharto era were mostly top- down processes led by the government in collaboration with food multinationals and international institutions. Several examples were subsidies on wheat imports in the 60s. This policy was under full influence of US due to surplus production in the US. The US facilitated a concession loan with low interest rates to purchase wheat from them. From 1968 to 1973, Indonesia imported 3.3 million metric tons of wheat (grain equivalent), of which 61 percent came from the US, and with 89 percent of the import budget coming from the concession loan (Siregar & Suryadi, 2005). Under the US loan and influence, Indonesia built the biggest wheat processing plant. Industries such as instant noodle production was heavily subsidized. Based on the data of 1994, the industry was subsidized 760 billion Rupiah per year (Siregar & Suryadi, 2005). Therefore, noodle consumption increased from 1.1 kg/cap/year in 1993 to about 2.3 kg/cap/year in 2002. The reality is that since Indonesia cannot grow wheat, Indonesia is highly dependent on imports. It increases food system vulnerability in Indonesia.

FLORES TIMUR Flores Timur is located in the tip of Flores island 2000 km away from the capital of Indonesia Jakarta. Larantuka is the capital city of Flores Timur regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province. It has a beautiful landscape, beaches, and cultural attraction which have the potential to boost the economy through tourism. Flores Timur has a unique terrain and climate. Flores Timur and East Nusa Tenggara is atypically dry compared to the rest of Indonesian archipelago, of 2.4 × 106 ha Indonesian land (annual rainfall <1,000 mm), approximately 1.0 × 106 ha is located in the province of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) (Jayaraju & J Abdullah, 2013). Flores Timur is the combination of flat tropical savannah and mountainous hilly terrain. Flores Timur and its surroundings are part of the Indonesian ring of fire with numerous volcanoes.

21

Source: Id.wikipedia (2010)

FIGURE 3 FLORES TIMUR POSITION IN INDONESIA MAP

According to the government report, Flores Timur and the rest of NTT have consistently remained a region with a low income, with 65 % of households living below the poverty line in 2005 (BPS, 2008). The geographical conditions, infrastructure, inequality of development and harsh climate are some causes of these circumstances (Bottema, Sukesi, & Seran, 2009). Almost 80% of people depend on agriculture. Farm activity mainly involves growing food crops such as maize, rice, cassava and other local tubers for daily consumption, animal husbandry raising livestock for economic and cultural purposes, and managing small plantations of cashew nut, candle nut, coffee, clove, and sandalwood. The harsh climate and dependency on rain-fed agriculture system leads to relatively high levels of producer risk. Thus, local people have coped with their weather and drought for centuries by developing unique strategies to deal with them (Bottema et al., 2009).

The government, development agents and the rest of population of Indonesia have a negative view of the people of Flores Timur and the rest of NTT province. They label them as harsh, apathetic and not willing to invest time. However, from my experience interacting with them during my work in Sumba, one of the islands in NTT, they are good people and are willing to cooperate and to work hard. The harsh and unrewarding geographical condition, previous encounters with outsiders, and the rugged development terrain make them look terrible and apathetic, but they are warm-hearted and have a strong will to change – they just never get the opportunity to do it by themselves.

Bayo (2009) writes about the limited role of the state provision of essential services to people because of severe inequality of development between Western and Eastern Indonesia. He concludes that Flores Timur is neglected by the state because the people rarely interact with the benevolent face of state in terms of public service, education, electricity, health, and infrastructure. Instead, the people frequently interact with the violent face of government such as police and military in conflicts between legal and customary laws. Thus, the state is also neglected by the Flores Timur people because of the stagnation of development. Bottema (2009) responds to the condition of mistrust among those actors. He argues that there is always the chicken and egg issue: whether the attitude is a consequence of the harsh and unrewarding conditions and perhaps ill-considered interventions, or whether it is the attitude that causes stagnation. Common sense says that both are true and that when a breakthrough comes, all becomes easier (Bottema et al., 2009). Bottema

22 underlines the need for an alternative way to develop or strengthen the empowerment of Flores Timur. Flores Timur is the perfect place to see the atrocious effects of the dominant food policy and its continuity. Flores has been known for its issue of malnutrition. The problem is not the lack of food but the lack of choice and diversity. Flores Timur used to have diverse local commodities to cope with the harsh climate and regular drought, but the government mono-cropping policies of the past 30 years has washed away the diversity and worsened the area's ecological vulnerability.

I.6 STRUCTURE OF THESIS This thesis report is divided into six chapters: two introductory chapters, three result chapters, and one conclusion chapter. In the first chapter, I provide the problem statement, theoretical framework, research questions, research methods, and the structure of this thesis.

In the second chapter, I give information about the construction of food policy hegemony in Indonesia. This chapter brings the food regime analysis to the Indonesian context, finding some similarities, differences, and evidence of the influence of hegemony in the food policy of Indonesia. I also highlight the rise of food policy along with the political and historical context of Indonesian history and their relation to the global world system. This chapter explains past political events that have a lasting influence on the farmers’ practices and ways of thinking, and the structure of livelihood in Flores Timur.

The third chapter provides information about the current issue and dynamic of food provisioning in Flores Timur. I will explain some characteristics of food provisioning, including the actors and agricultural institutions who shaped the reality of food provisioning. This chapter explains the intertwined dynamic of the socio-political reality of food provisioning and how the room for maneuver for a food movement was shaped.

The fourth chapter provides information about everyday farmer politics towards the food movement and the state facilitated corporate food regime. It reveals how farmers respond and perceive the food sovereignty discourse brought by NGOs versus the food security discourse produced by government programs in four villages in Flores Timur. This chapter also reveals the differences of context and prerequisite conditions that shaped farmer responses and identifies the effects of each program on farmer livelihoods.

The fifth chapter discusses the alternativeness of food sovereignty in Flores Timur, their contradiction with the dominant discourse (food security) and also the implication on the everyday practical activity of the farmer. This chapter also explains the counter-hegemonic properties of the food movement, providing an alternative narration of food provisioning in Flores Timur with its challenges and strategies. This chapter provides insights on how academic debates on theories align with the ground evidence of the movement, and whether hindrance or opportunity lies within. This chapter explains the dynamics, strengths and weaknesses of the counter-hegemonic movement and the opportunity for improvement in the future.

The sixth chapter covers the conclusions of the thesis. Here I reflect my findings and the answers to my research questions with the theories and insights that I encountered in related literature. The conclusion also provides personal reflections and suggestions for future studies.

23

II. THE TRAJECTORIES OF FOOD IN INDONESIA

In this chapter, I provide some discussion and information on how transnational food hegemony influences Indonesia food policy and thus many livelihoods of people in Flores Timur. A few commodities such as rice have become such a powerful commodity, used and abused by power holders since the colonial era. There are so many different food sources in the heterogeneous and vast country, yet Indonesians are so dependent on this one food commodity. I will try to disentangle the relations between the phenomenon with the dynamic contest of power on food policy. I provide a different point of view other than the common answers, such as historical lineage, consumer preferences or nutritional content.

II. 1 HOW HEGEMONY WORKS IN HISTORY OF INDONESIA To bring a more comprehensive understanding of food policy in Indonesia, this chapter will first examine how the political and social dynamics occur around the event when the food policy was shaped. I divide the Indonesia's food policy trajectories into several milestones which represent different political situations and the hegemonic nuance surrounding it.

COLONIAL ERA The history of food policy started long ago. During the Dutch period, food policies for Java and the Outer Islands were starkly different, reflecting various population densities and cropping patterns. In the 1930s, Dutch colonials started putting the instruments to regulate rice in Java. The Dutch mainly worked in and ruled from the cities, while the continuously visible threat to colonial power was the possibility of urban uprisings during rice shortages. The Dutch mainly regulated rice in Java. Java was the main producer of rice but also the primary consumer and the center of the colony. The famine and unpredictable climate were one of the greatest impediments to rice production. When rice was overproduced in Java, the government would export to other islands or colonies, while the import of rice was stopped. If the price of rice increased because of supply shortages, exports would be limited, and a special government body would execute the highly regulated imports.

A specialized government agency was clearly needed to implement this revolutionary degree of interference in the functioning of the rice market. It was established in April 1939 as the Stitching Het Voedingsmiddelenfonds or VMF. Its finance for imports was gained from the Javasche Bank with government guarantee; finance for purchase of domestic rice was arranged through private banks. (USAID, 2002)

This fragment shows that an institutional attempt on intervening in rice policy was adopted. The next question would be why the Dutch had to regulate the price and maintain the stable flow of rice. The first answer was the moral responsibility of government and colonies. They needed to ensure access to food for the people to prevent hunger or severe malnutrition. Second, If we analyze using the lens of political economy, the reason was to continue legitimating their power and superiority towards other populations. It was used as a tool to suppress riots and resistance from the people in demand for independence. If the people felt that they could afford the food, they would not have any reason to resist the colonial government. Every episode of scarcity became a trigger for

24 resistance. The third was if the people had enough food then they could focus on their work to produce valuable export commodities for the colonial corporations, and they would make enough to pay taxes to the colonial government.

I suggest that the primary motive was to maintain their power in the colony so they could continue to accumulate capital through the export commodities and taxes. The colonial government made the population feel safe with a steady food supply. Showing the benevolent face of colonialism was important to shut down the uprising. If the rice policy was a financial burden to colonial financial, it was just matter of production costs which could be recovered by the tax and revenue from export commodities. During the colonial era, Indonesian agriculture was forced to serve the needs of the West by planting export products. “The growth in the arable area which occurred in colonial Indonesia was not just for food crops cultivation. There was also a very rapid increase in land area under production of international markets commodities such as rubber, copra, and coffee” (Booth 1989 pp. 1237). This practice of accumulation by oppression endured for more than three centuries until 1945 when Indonesia claimed its independence. The resulting damage from the colonial period was so intense that the newly born Republic of Indonesia started with severe drawbacks in the economic, political, social and food sectors.

INDONESIA INDEPENDENCE EUPHORIA (1945-1965) Sukarno as the first president of Indonesia focused on rebuilding its national integrity. Sukarno ordered the revitalization of Indonesian nationalism. He took initial actions such as nationalizing foreign companies, stabilizing the economy, and suppressing the dissatisfaction of those different political views. The Dutch colonial idea on food policy continued under the newly born government (Timmer, 1975). Furthermore, rice became more important politically to maintain obedience among civil servants and military of the republic during times of inflation and budget shortage. Sukarno government used rice as in-kind wages for civil servants and the military. This policy has a double burden: on one hand it is necessary to protect real income from soaring inflation but on the other hand, it leads to dependency. The trade and import interventions will endure and the specialized body regulating rice will have more responsibility. This special body not only stabilized prices but also provided a steady supply to pay the wages. Unlike the Dutch, Sukarno under the new republic intensified the scope of rice policy to cover all of Indonesia. The vast amount of rice supply was needed. Trade intervention was vulnerable to unstable rice prices and increased dependency. Interventions for thriving national self-sufficiency was urgently needed.

During President Sukarno's era, Indonesia was in the middle of a hegemony contestation between the US and the rest of the pack of capitalism, and the Soviet Union under the big flag of communism. Indonesia was still under the threat of recolonization. Under unstable political conditions, Sukarno tried to consolidate power in Indonesia by making a political cocktail between nationalists, religious groups and communists in the form of NASAKOM. However, as there was no contestation in food policy, the colonial hegemony of knowledge still dominated, as backed by the US food policy hegemony. The only influence of communist ideology on agriculture policy was the new law of land reform issued in the early 1960s, regulating the size of privately owned land.

Constitution No. 56 PRP 1960, regarding the Establishment of Agricultural Land Size (29 December 1960) contains regulation on land redistribution. According to this law, every household was allowed to obtain a maximum of five hectares wet rice land (sawah) and six hectares of dry land

25 in the most densely populated areas (more than 400 persons per km2). Greater holdings were allowed in less densely populated regions. The state would redistribute the excess land holdings, with priority given to individuals who actually cultivated that area (Robinson, 1995). The new laws bolstered conflicts between land owners (elites) and landless citizens. From a landless people point of view, the agrarian reform policy was a miracle that gave them access to lands. The actual implementation of this law was vague because before this regulation was fully implemented, there was a coup d'etat by the army in 1965, known as G/30S/PKI. In response to this event, communist ideology was entirely eradicated in the country.

In the contest of knowledge, the domination of colonial knowledge and the newer capitalist approach from US held the food policy of Indonesia hostage. In 1952 Sukarno gave a passionate speech at the new Agriculture Faculty at the University of Indonesia Campus in Bogor, now known as Bogor Agriculture University. A well-known quote from the speech was:

‘Why bother talking about political freedom,’ Sukarno asked in the speech, ‘if we don’t have freedom to manage our rice, and always have to beg for help buying rice from our neighboring nations.’ (Sukarno in Jeffrey Neilson, 2013)

This was how the problem of food security in Indonesia for the next 60 years were ideologically framed by Sukarno. He presented the issue of food security in a mathematical way: balancing national rice production with calorie consumption requirements and population should be balanced. It was important to increase food production nationally. It is possible to accomplish through several actions: intensification of rice production, extensification of total rice production area through forest conversion, subsidizing the domestic manufacturing of fertilizers, and offering farmers technical agronomic advice. He also envisaged the development of broad acre dryland agriculture, mimicking the food bowls of the North American prairies, as a ‘way-out’(Jeffrey Neilson, 2013). An early attempt at agriculture intervention was in 1956. (USAID, 2002) record this in their report:

"Early attempts, for example, the Kasimo welfare plan announced in 1952 which aimed at self- sufficiency in rice by 1956, followed the early Dutch colonial extension approach of olie vlek, or "oil spot" method. Good farming techniques were demonstrated at critical locations in the countryside and were to spread gradually from there. The Dutch experienced satisfactory qualitative results, but the rate of progress was much too slow to keep up with expanding population."

Any intervention in the Sukarno era did not create any remarkable achievement, especially in agriculture. Booth (1989) remark on this effort in his writing. He argued that there was no significant success in food crops yields per harvested hectare until the 1960s, in spite of government spending on expanding irrigation and on research and extension services.

Sukarno ended his presidency in 1965 after a bloody political coup d'etat scapegoating the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as the puppet master of kidnapping and killing six army generals. The failed coup d'etat triggered an anti-communist purge. The large-scale killing, targeting communists, ethnic Chinese and alleged leftists were often at the instigation of the armed forces and government (Cribb, 1991). The most widely accepted estimates of victims killed are between 500,000 to one million people. Others study claim estimates as high as two to three million. The purge was a

26 pivotal event in the transition to the "New Order" and the elimination of the PKI as a political force. The upheavals led to the downfall of President Sukarno and the commencement of Suharto's three- decade dictatorship. Under the new order, Indonesia was ruled by an autocracy silencing whoever criticized the government by coercion or by framing them as being members of the PKI. Robison in Aspinall, (2013) briefly explain the rising new order and the relation with the anti-communist purge.

" He saw the rise of the New Order as both a ‘‘counter-revolution against ‘socialist’ forces...to the extent that the PKI was viewed as a threat to the propertied classes but also as ‘‘revolutionary... in that it broke out of the decaying colonial stage and lifted the capitalist revolution to a new state of development’’ A powerful state was a prerequisite for this revolution."

NEW ORDER DICTATORSHIP (1966-1998) The desire for the self-sufficiency of rice was extensively used by the Suharto regime to accumulate both power and capital to make his dictatorship last. The characteristics of the new order regime of food policy is explained by (Jeff Neilson & Arifin, 2011) below:

"Soeharto ruled Indonesia autocratically for 32 years, from 1966 until 1998 in what became known as the new order regime. The new order was associated with the introduction of pro- western economic liberalism into Indonesia, rampant and highly centralized corruption; severe limitation on the individual democratic freedoms; and the sometimes violent repression of activist movement and human rights. Peasant organizations and others advocating land reform were singled out for particularly harsh treatment by the regime due to their association (real or imagined) with the outlawed and demonized Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI)... The regime tends to equate food security with national level rice self-sufficiency (i.e. an emphasis on a narrow definition of food availability), maintaining single-minded rice policy."

Rice policies are used excessively to expand power under Suharto’s new order regime, not only for civil servants, military and urban areas but also rural and non-rice consuming islands (Timmer, 1975). A clear example of a new order food policy was the green revolution. The Green Revolution was known among Indonesian as the Bimas program (Bimbingan Masal, or Mass Guidance). Bimas affected Indonesian agricultural production by increasing new technology applications such as including knowledge and materials (seeds, inputs, machinery). Over time, it replaced old practices and became the foundation of Indonesian agricultural development until today. Indonesia expanded its farmlands, increased labor and other inputs to its agriculture. Farms grew by an average of 1.4% per year during 1961-2006 and was still growing by more than 1% per year in the mid-2000s, with all of the expansion occurring on the densely populated island of Java, Kalimantan, Sumatra, and Sulawesi (van der Eng 1996; MOA 2009).

Indonesia’s agriculture production increased due to the Bimas program. The country achieved significant achievement in the agricultural sector during the 1970s and 1980s through the diffusion of high-yielding varieties of food crops (Fuglie, K.O. 2004). However, this self-sufficiency did not last long. The focus on subsidies led to the dependency of the farmer on external inputs. When the government could not provide a subsidy, self-sufficiency was no longer feasible. The green revolution also tended to have less respect for indigenous farming technique and the diversity of livelihoods. The farmer who was growing mixed crops before are pushed to planting monoculture, using the industrial agriculture model. To some extent, producers and bigger corporations with

27 robust government support of infrastructure can comply with this strategy. But for smaller farmers and subsistence peasants, they will always be marginalized by this type of policy. They will suffer due to the pressure of low prices, the higher price of agricultural inputs or the soaring cost of living.

The green revolution also has become the initial engagement of corporations to create accumulation through government contracts of agricultural inputs. The dependency of these inputs, an effect of the green revolution program, keeps the accumulation process from the farmer in the event that the government cannot give subsidies. Suharto's rice policy created an uneven impact on the outer islands. He heavily concentrated his development in Java and near the capital of the provinces. Indonesia is vast and geographically challenging, which makes it difficult to provide decent infrastructure. The rice policy has forced the outer, remote island communities to consume rice. Since there are communities in the outer islands where growing rice is hardly possible, they depend on a rice supply from outside the island. The people on these islands become more vulnerable. The notion of Foucault biopolitics can clearly be seen here. Biopolitics are centered on the tenet 'make live or let die'. The attempt to 'make live' in this context is managing self-sufficiency of rice while abandoning the other realities. As for the 'let die' part, the state can govern which ones deserve to die using their policy.

The new order nurtures and strengthens capitalism through the state-business relations, patronage-client relations between the state and corporations. Aspinall, (2013) argued about the rise of capitalism and the capitalist class during the new order era "...it was formed out of the powerful politico-bureaucratic families who controlled the state, and their allies. Capitalism and capitalists were emerging in tandem with state power, rather than separately, let alone in opposition".

POST-REFORMASI (1998-RECENT) After the regime had fallen, the area of democracy was reopened. It created a new contestation of ideas and room for maneuver to readdress food policy, to comply with inevitable changes. Jeff Neilson & Arifin (2011) argue that Indonesia demanded a new strategic approach to food security, requiring greater emphasis on food accessibility at the household level and an appreciation of diverse livelihood portfolios. The available room for maneuver has not been used carefully in searching for alternatives. Instead, it has served to strengthen the political legacy for self- sufficiency on rice. This rice-based food policy and the quest of self-sufficiency continues. Jeff Neilson & Arifin (2011) argue that despite initiatives to improve food accessibility over the last decade; Indonesian policy continues to conflate food security with rice self-sufficiency. There was a new law on food no. 18 the year 2012, signed under Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The law includes notions of food sovereignty, including the food diversification program and local food enhancement. It was promising hope to the food provisioning in Indonesia. In fact, the continuity of hegemony is beyond the government. The current reality of food provisioning is far from ideal. Rice as the main and the most politicized commodity will always become central to the discussion.

Every two or three months, there is always news about rice supply and demand. The corporate bureaucracy regime creates the illusion of scarcity to legitimate the import of rice from another country, usually facilitated through a corporate trading company. This trading company usually has connections with politicians or are close to the bureaucrat. The Commission for Corruption Eradication, one of the leading institutions in fighting corruption in Indonesia argued that there was a cartel and food mob dominate the food supply and demand in Indonesia. They create

28 scarcity of rice and other staples by holding back huge amounts of the rice or simply spread rumors about food scarcity. This pushes the government to open import quotas and then direct the allocation of quotas to their corporations. The food import quota policy becomes the point of a conspiracy between the corrupt government official and corporation (Kompas, 2013). Commission for the Supervision of Business Competition Republic of Indonesia (KPPU) in 2015 found 11 suspected companies with cartel practices (price arrangement) in 11 provinces in Indonesia that create the illusion of rice scarcity (CNN, 2015). In 2013, one of the chiefs of a political party was under arrest related to corruption and bribery related to the beef import quota. He was using their political position as a legislator to direct the beef quota to some corporations in exchange for a huge amount of money and allegedly funding the party political action. His party has a close relation with the appointed minister of agriculture. Using his influence and government connections he easily manipulated some rules and regulations about the beef import quota (Tempo, 2013). Some of the news above showed close relations between the corporate and government, and also the existence of a mutual relationship between these two parties to influence food policy and regulation. The agribusiness like-minded paradigm in the government policy also show the close relation between corporations and the government. The certified seed law is an example of how the regulation heavily take the side of the agro-corporation rather than the small farmer. There are only a few corporation producers, who can be traced and linked with a handful of transnational corporations. Agricultural modernization first introduced by the government prescribes the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, which is produced by a few corporations.

Indonesia after 'reformasi' was more open and democratized. There was a lot of freedom and the new room for maneuver was opened. Aspinall (2013) argues that while initially the state was nurturing the capitalist class, the reverse now happens. The capitalist class is part of the state through their maneuver via electoral means. He mentioned :

"The Rise of Capital: major business players who were fostered by the state’s protectionist policies (especially around the oil and gas industry) from the 1970s onward, and those who emerged directly from the politico-bureaucratic elite (family members and other close associates of the officials who had the power to dispense licenses, monopolies and other benefits) (Robison 1986, 323–370). Above all, it is this group which has emerged as much more confident political players in the post-Reformasi era. Indeed, we are beginning to see Indonesia’s super-rich gaining direct access to political power through electoral means, in ways that are reminiscent of many other capitalist democracies... The robber barons, vote buying and machine politics of those earlier epochs certainly have their modern-day Indonesian equivalents, as do their robust public spheres and political contestation."

This capital accumulation regime practice appears in every sector of food policy. There was a food regime shift to private corporations and government-politician elites. However, this motive is the same as capital accumulation and power accumulation. The hegemony was changing from the corrupt autocratic regime to the rent-seeking capitalist oligarchy which has brought devastating consequences in exchange for the illusion of economic progress, marginalization, and capital accumulation. Winters (2014) argued, "the aftermath of the collapse of authoritarianism has given rise to an ‘‘untamed oligarchy,’’ disciplined neither by the sultanistic rule of Suharto nor by the strong rule of law or other mediating institutions."

29

CURRENT STATE OF FOOD POLICY IN INDONESIA The newest president of Indonesia Joko Widodo was elected in 2014. He was known as being humble and popular among the people at the bottom of the pyramid. He also has no background or connections whatsoever to previous elites. He includes the term food sovereignty in his vision and works on policies to bring improvements to farmers and poor people. He naively took an action on food subsidies. Unfortunately, his move apparently shows that hegemony still exists. He launched a program called special effort on food self-sufficiency, or UPSUS PAJALE. This program targets the three commodities of rice, corn and soy. This shows a blatant replication the food program from Soeharto's dictatorship era, where he tried to achieve national food self-sufficiency through the green revolution strategy. The food security program launched by recent president Joko Widodo also follows this pattern. This program mobilizes a massive amount of fertilizers and pesticides to farmers, creating dependency and ecological impacts. Corporations cooperate with government officials to implement the food policy, causing heavy dependence on the corporation's products. In exchange, government officials get resources for themselves or certain groups secure their position politically by supporting these politician's campaigns and allow buying of their vote. Atrocious food cartels and food policies had created a vicious cycle, causing especially poor and small food producers to suffer heavily. The hope of a new president bringing a food and agriculture program with an innovative approach was false. The same approach and programming logic are being replicated again and again, no matter who is the president. Hence, the food regime always evolves to comply with the regime to reproduce the hegemony of agricultural development. The notion of food sovereignty as stated in laws and regulations were once again betrayed. Food sovereignty is thus only a label to legitimate policy and silence the contested ideas among food movement activists, farmers, and NGOs.

II.2 FROM JAKARTA TO LARANTUKA In the first part of this chapter I explained how hegemony works through history. In this subchapter, I show how food policy works from the national to the local level, and how it affects the livelihood of the farmer.

FIGURE 4 JAKARTA TO LARANTUKA RELATIVE POSITION

“Rice is strategic and political commodity...Rice production must be higher but reducing rice consumption also necessary to reach self-sufficiency faster, but increasing production has always been a priority. There is an only small portion of food diversification efforts even though the regulation has been changed, and we want more equal treatment to our effort

30

in diversification and local food but in the government budget implementation has not been prioritized."1

Above is part of an interview with a state officer from the national food security agency in Jakarta. Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia and every significant policy is made here. This section of the interview elucidates that what I suspected is true: there are enough government laws and regulations on local food. At least four laws mentioning food diversity are recognized. President Law number 22/2009 talks about consumption diversification efforts based on local food, followed by Ministry of Agriculture law number 43/2009. The newest food law no. 18 /2012 and government law no. 17/ 2015 about food and nutrition strategy. The implementation of these laws is far from ideal. The government official convinced me that local food local is never a priority and showed that rice will always be supported as the ultimate commodity. It triggered the question of why local food is never prioritized. If Indonesians agree that rice is the ultimate commodity to fulfill appetites, why did I find many failures to access it? The excerpt above reflects how capitalism works in Indonesia among the political society. It is clear that rice is important for maintaining power and silencing the people so there would be less resistance. Rice is a commodity with a political attribute, that has been abused for power accumulation, by supporting capital accumulation by an oligarch or anyone in the power in Indonesia. If so, the local food movement is both counter-hegemonic and shows disobedience by fulfilling needs with local commodities.

"We also did some internal advocacy work. We commend our voice to the politician in legislature because they have the authority to allocate, influence and approve the budget together with the Ministry of Agriculture. They have enough authority. We still managed to advocate the importance of local food, but you know the politics of budget, they have also considered how much they get if they approve the budget."2

It was one of the problems revealed in policy making. The bad politician who serves the interest of a ruling oligarchy on how to dominate the Indonesian economy and their personal interest. The ability to bend and manage laws and regulations to serve the ruling class and other interests that might be represented. It was just like Aspinall (2013) said before about Indonesian policy making after reformasi and how the oligarchy ruled capital and manipulated the state to serve their interests. The global neoliberal that brings privatization makes Indonesia more vulnerable to global investment dynamics, hence influencing the poor and the marginal.

In 2001, with law UU No. 22/1999 on local government and later revised by UU No.32/2004, Indonesia carried out a decentralization policy, which meant regional autonomy. The district level now had more freedom to govern at the local level. The idea was to spread centralized order to the local level, so more participatory democracy would be achieved. The government at the lowest level can make their laws and implement programs different from the national program, although the budget still comes from the national government. It showed a promising future but in fact the authoritarian structure is deeply rooted. Although locals have the freedom, government officials have been trained to follow orders and serve the national interest. The government officials at the district level still maintain the old pattern and follow the pattern of power shift: elites with capital become legislators or buy votes in order to become head of the district. The local level food policy

1interview, FSA-national, intial "RS" 31-03-2016 2interview, FSA-National, Initial "RS" 31-03-2016

31 implementation may serve both the national interest and the interests of the head of district. As local leaders have an interest in gaining extra budget in a special program or attracting investment from national corporations, they support the national interest and vice versa. This pattern will always prolong the existence of the ruling class and event create a local capitalist ruling class.

However, decentralization also has a positive effect on local food mainstreaming. I reckon that in 2007, Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) province started to initiate a local food policy, preceding the national local food policy which started in 2009. Frans Lebu Raya, then Governor, showed his commitment to local food. He always pushes the provincial and local food agencies for interviews. The NTT provincial food security agency reported on how much local food initiatives have been supported.

"In Nusa Tenggara Timur province local food diversification has started since 2007, it has been done by allocating grants for promoting the consumption of local food and holding annual exhibitions on local food, on the birthday of Nusa Tenggara province. I admit that there were not many incentives in the production sector. That's why maybe farmers tend to grow commodities that have support from the government, such as corn, hybrid corn I mean, and rice."3

The local government still has the power, through attractive incentives, to make farmers grow the commodities they want. Popkin (1979) argues about the 'rational farmer', in opposition to James C. Scott's (1977) ideal moral economy of a peasant. Farmers have both attributes as they still believe in their culture and kinship but also make rational calculations as to what can be more profitable. Incentives from the government increased farmer interest but the reality that most farmers agree on is that local corn is more reliable than the hybrid corn in their farm. The part of the interview below sheds some light:

"Even thought there were government subsidies for hybrid corn, they (farmer) still keep planting local corn because they believe that they can store local corn for an extended period and feel more satisfied if they eat local corn.4"

From the interview, you can see the manipulative action of the farmer to government program from the official government point of view. This general local relation pattern between farmer and government always emerges in my fieldwork, which will be elaborated on in the following chapter. The Head of the NTT province was one of the governors that committed to local food. He initiated a handful of programs in local food and actively advocated local food to their people. The promotion of consumption through an exhibition of local menu, using catering that serves local food in meetings, and promotion through media. One thing that was missing from his program was Intervention from the production side of local food by giving incentives and subsidies.

The lowest level of official regional autonomy is in the Regency. Flores Timur is one such regency in the NTT province. The capital of Flores Timur is Larantuka. Flores Timur consists of two islands and eastern part of Flores. Larantuka was the unique facade when Catholicism and local culture collide together. Flores Timur and Larantuka has been know since the colonial trading era of

3interview,FSA-NTT initial Y, 12-11-2015 4Interview FSA-NTT initial Y

32 the Portuguese and then the Dutch. Larantuka was a command post and administrative city for sandalwood trading and gospel missions at the time.

"We grow almost everything in our kebun at least two or three kinds of plant corn, highland rice, mung bean, sweet potato cassava and vegetable. Almost food crops for domestic and family consumption. If there is a surplus after calculating our need for one year then we can sell, or trade or just for reserve when other people need, but we don't routinely sell only if other people or family member want to buy for ceremony purpose and or if they don't have enough food"5.

In Larantuka I found the conjuncture of national interest and local needs on food. Farmer and peasant in Flores Timur usually have two strategies: on one part of the land they grow annual cash crops, mostly cashew nut coconut, and another part will be used for cultivating food crops such as corn, vegetable and highland rice, pumpkin, cassava, sweet potato. They call this part of this land just simply kebun. In this kebun, farmer grows their food for family consumption and only portion of it will be sold. The cash crops will provide their need for money for other needs such as schools, customary ceremony, electronics and transportation. There were almost no farmers or peasant with single monoculture commodities or who grew food crops for sale only. They will try to have a diverse mix of crops so they can spread the risk of harvest failure to several commodities. As farmers depend on rain for growing food crops, they plan various plants to comply with the season and also to disperse the risk of crop failure. Below is an excerpt of an interview with a Flores Timur farmer on artificial fertilizers.

“From the government, we are aware of how to use synthetic fertilizer and have now become familiar with it. If there's no fertilizer, we cannot grow anything now. But before, we always have enough harvest without fertilizer. We cannot keep it too long, fertilized corn because easy to spoil. The problem with fertilizer and pesticide that we must buy it from the shop and need money, even though our harvest is mostly for household consumption and family needs, only small portion of the harvest that we sell.

I have about 1/4 hectare in Kedang. I spend about Rp 130.000, four bottles of herbicide worth Rp 240.000 I spent about Rp 400.000 in total plus delivery cost, after harvest no single grain that I sell because the just enough for domestic consumption. I sit down and thinking every year I spend hundred thousand rupiahs without any fixed income. In the unfortunate situation that my cash crop doesn't support me anymore, then finally I will choose to do migrant labor again and let down my 'kebun.'"6

The farmer has multiple crops to cope with local conditions. On the other hand, the national food policy only has the three heavily supported commodities of rice, corn, and soy. The government only engages with one mode of production: monoculture and industrial agriculture with artificial fertilizers, pesticides and modern machinery. The less diverse choice created by national policy makes farmers in remote areas either become more marginalized or trying hard to follow the path that doesn't fit with their local conditions. It becomes more problematic when the farmer gives up and stops growing food,finding other jobs or depending solely on rice from other islands or

5interview clemens koten 6 interview stanis, 25-07-2016

33 government austerity with a higher price. They may use all the cash crop money to buy food or farm inputs from outside, leaving no savings for other needs. We can see the symptom of de- peasantization spreading across Flores Timur.

THE AFTERMATH OF FOOD PROVISION IN FLORES TIMUR Traditional farming practices in Flores Timur mainly aimed to provide food for family and clans, not for trading or selling. Farming in Flores Timur are usually swidden farming but in another areas, permanent farming plots are more preferable. Both types of agriculture have a similar pattern: they are intended to fulfill family needs in one year and provide food among clans and kampung. The farmers were hardly dependent on the rain for irrigating the farm.

Customary law governs most of the land here. If family or clans want to open the farm, they need to ask permission from landlords. Landlords will allocate the land according to family needs and set out the natural boundaries to avoid disputes from other families or clans. After the communal ceremony at the beginning of the rainy season, the family will open up the forest and burn the trees and bushes. After that, they plant mixed crops in the allocated land. They usually plant the kebun with a circular pattern of different mixed crops. These mixed crops provide greater resilience from uncertain weather. The circular pattern seen in Figure 2 provides layers of protection from animals.

FIGURE 5 ILLUSTRATION OF PLANTS IN THE KEBUN

The center is paddy and corn because these plants require more effort and care. The third layer is sorghum because it is taller than rice and corn. If birds attack the field, sorghum would be eaten first. For the farmer, this is preferable because sorghum requires less effort than the other two plants. The next layer are tuber plants such as sweet potato, pumpkin, cassava, and some vegetables. The last layer is jewawut or millet. This plant protects the other plants from rats and wild boars. Jewawut is the easiest to plant and not require any maintenance, and as it grows near the ground, so the farmer hopes that pests would eat this plant first before attacking other crops.7 If there is land left, they would plant merunggai trees, a hardy plant whose leaves can be eaten as a vegetable.

Farmers will plant everything as quickly as possible because of the short rainy season. They will work together with other families and everyone in the kampung. After one farm is finished, they

7interview clemen koten

34 move to another family farm – a process that in the local language is called gemohing. A farmer is helped by another farmer and in exchange, he helps out on another farm.

There is also another type of farm involving clans and the kampung. In a communal farm, every man in the kampung or clan participates in its opening. They plant the same commodities as a family farm but the harvest will be divided evenly among members and or stored in the public barn (lumbung) for emergency or ceremonial purposes). If there are members with no food left in their barn, they can borrow grain from the public barn. They must replace the amount and type of crops borrowed by the next year. The grain from public barn also can be used to subsidize members in a difficult situation and unable to grow food, such as the sick or in a funeral party. It can also be utilized for adat ceremonies, which usually require a large amount of food to feed all the participants.

After a harvest, a farmer stores food in the barn to feed his family and as a seed bank until the next season. If a farmer has a surplus of production, he keeps it as a food reserve, to be used to help other families or in anticipation of unexpected events such as a funeral or marriage party. Trade and bartering are common but limited to only a few things that can't grow.

II.3 THE RECENT SHIFT Nowadays, Flores Timur traditional farming has shifted. Some of the traditional values remain but some modification and compliance with current values have also been identified. Changes in food provision represent the change in livelihoods of the people of Flores Timur. The shift happened after a long period of development projects by the state, church and market, as the immediate result of modernization. I identified four modes of food provision in Flores Timur:

1. Full traditional farming practices of individual and communal food crops

2. Semi-traditional farming of family/clan's food crops and individual cash crops

3. Cash crops without food crops4. Food crops without cash crops

The first mode of production rarely exists. This type of production is usually found in the remotest part of the island. I hardly came across that kind of farming, though I heard from several informants that in the hinterland of Adonara and Lembata, this type of agriculture is usually run by groups of elders. Few elders still practice this traditional way of farming.8 The second type of agriculture is common practice. In the 1980s, the government introduced cashew nut trees to Flores Timur. Farmers accepted it for increasing cash income. Cashew has been the most popular cash crop since. Coconut, candle nut, coffee, cacao, pinang (areca) and nutmeg are other types of cash crops. The farmer has both fields for food crops and cash crops. The people use money from selling cashew nuts to pay school fees, to buy a television, soap and other needs that are not found in nature. They eat mainly from what they can grow but sometimes when a bad harvest occurs they may use cash to buy food from the kiosk. The need for cash is growing, not only because of bad harvests but also various needs that are no longer provided from nature. Peer pressure to live better and to have a decent party for marriages and family celebrations sometimes make them need to find alternative jobs. Sometimes the farmer may not only earn cash from cash crops but from selling honey or fish,

8 maria loretha interview and stanis lembata

35 trading, working as a motorcycle taxi driver, working on other farms, or laboring in nearby construction sites.

The third type of farm is cash crops without food crops. This is common for people who have other jobs and have no time to farm. Among them are traders, entrepreneurs, fishermen, seamen or civil servants with a fixed monthly income. They buy food from the nearby market or from their neighbors. It is common for older people who cannot manage food crops anymore, so they get food from their children and younger family members. This was also the case for families of migrant workers, whose family members are too old or too young to farm. People living in the capital city Larantuka usually have this type of coping strategy. I also found this in the West Adonara where there is no reachable arable land to grow food nearby, because all land has been used as cashew nut plantations. The land is available but is far away from their settlement without any roads.

The fourth type is usually people who have no land or who are migrants. They have only enough land for growing food, but they don't have the right to afford more for cash crops. They depend on money from the paid job, though the salary is not enough to buy food or to remit to their families on another island. This type of farm is also common for families of migrant workers, who depend on remittances for cash needs and grow food for their daily consumption.

These various modes of crop production show that farming in Flores Timur is influenced by the outside world. There are strong traditional farming practices among farmers, but also inevitable adaptations to the current reality. The farmer is classified under the second category above. The farmer finds a way to cope with the situation by finding another way to generate income but without compromising their traditional farming of food crops. I found some cases that showed changes, such as decreasing the variety of plants, and applying fertilizers and pesticides, though the pattern of agriculture is mostly still intact.

The farmer never thinks of taking on fully industrialized agriculture in the food crops, like mono-culture intensified food production, etc. They realize that industrialized farming requires more cash to buy inputs of fertilizers, seeds, and herbicides. They will also face the challenges of unstable rain and source of water. So, for them, traditional farming to produce food crops is still feasible and more profitable. Nevertheless, they try everything and take some risks to find alternatives for income generation. For example, by planting a new variety of plant such as cacao or other cash crops. They also broaden their activity by finding side jobs to fulfill increasing cash needs. Once again, they do not compromise their farming of food crops.

LOST FOOD DIVERSITY There are some changes that influence the diversity of food produced by the farmer. In traditional farming, we found at least seven main staples according to Tonuwujo folklore. Now, only two are still intensively planted, which are corn and rice. The other staples are decreasing rapidly. According to the official record in 2014, overall Flores Timur sorghum production was only less than 10 tons, and no longer available in the street market. People are no longer conveniently eating sweet potato, cassava or bananas that are available from the nearby forest. Instead, they buy rice or instant noodles from a kiosk. The food austerity program which distributes rice for the poor also makes them more dependent on rice and causes them to lose their ability to combine resources available in

36 nature to fulfill their needs. The poor have no time to process or plant their food because of growing cash needs, but the cash they generate is mostly spent on food. They forget traditional ways of food provisioning, which severely impacts their well-being. Food dependency increases, which leads to more vulnerable livelihoods. The scarcity of food does not exist naturally; rather it is shaped. The people who are usually able to provide food are forced to buy food, which requires money, making them severely desperate to have more. The situation is not of food scarcity but cash shortages. The loss of food diversity made them suffer even more.

CUSTOMARY LAND ARRANGEMENT TRANSFORMATION Tradition and adat include a customary law regarding land arrangements of farming and settlements. The land arrangement is managed by the landlord or ata kabelen clan. Landlords have the right to distribute land, but not the right to collect tax or harvest sharing. The landlord is just a symbol of legitimacy and permission for people who want to open a farm or build a house. It is also a way to avoid conflicts of land boundaries with other individuals who came earlier. It is still common practice in the outskirts of Larantuka. There are variations of land arrangements and ownership:

1. Full communal land

2. Semi-communal land: part of the land is an individual's right, but there are vast amounts of communal land

3. State law propertied private land

The first is an indigenous land arrangement, where land cannot be owned individually. The land is managed by the landlord to determine boundaries and the distribution among kampung members. If they are not working on the land anymore, the land can be allocated to another member. Land sales are forbidden. The landlord does not have any right to harvest or ask for rent/tax, though they have a right to the land. People from outside can ask for land for housing or farming, but only if they want to live in that kampung and become a member. If they do not intend to live there, the land would be allocated to another villager who needs it. I found this arrangement in Kawalelo, Kedang, Lembata, and Serinuho.

The second arrangement is also common, and exists because the people experienced a government program called local transmigration. In West Adonara, this arrangement created a problematic situation. The arrangement dismantled the farmer's ability to grow food, leading to poverty and dispossession. In the past, people in West Adonara lived scattered in the small settlements surrounded by ancestral land. The government needed to construct some public infrastructure (schools, roads, etc) in order to reach these scattered communities more easily and efficiently. The government created a program to recommend and force people to move to available land near new roads. In the new sites, the people received 2,5 hectares: half a hectare for settlement and two hectares for farming. The new settlement recognized only the state law of land arrangement, undermining all customary laws. The ancestral land remains respected but less accessible. The sudden shift towards a decrease in livelihoods led to the most common prescription of participating in the market economy. The third type of land arrangement is typically found in the capital city of Larantuka, several sub-district capitals in Flores Timur and also some villages around the national roads. We rarely found farmers with this type of land arrangement. In the past, maybe they were farmers, but then chose other jobs to cope with any changes.

37

III. ACTORS AND POWER DYNAMICS IN FLORES TIMUR (The review on Flores Timur society structure and power dynamic)

III. 1 FLORES TIMUR SOCIETY Flores Timur society and its way of life are living examples of tremendous endurance over many cultural occupations. Foreign power and invasion started in the 16th century. Despite this, indigenous character and traditions remain in a visible form. The Portuguese opened up the trail, bringing Flores Timur into a global trading point for sandalwood and bringing Catholicism into the society. The community showed an unruly attitude towards everything that came to interfere with their culture. They have been pushing Catholicism to blend with local religions. They also keep their diverse local languages and habits, which survive till today. Resilience is a strong characteristic of these people. They can live with minimum support from anyone else. They survive a harsh climate, conflict, coercion and many scarcities. The people of Flores Timur are usually framed as being rude, stubborn, lazy and backwards by outsiders. The labeling occurs because they are indisciplinable by any rule set by an outsider. They have a lot of pride in their traditions and ways of life. They will openly contest or forcibly compromise every value from outside to comply with their way of life. That is why this society seems to be 'untame-able'. In the past, they pushed Catholicism to adapt with their traditions and continuously contested the state authority. For Flores Timur society, three strong forces influence their everyday life: adat (a local institution), the church (Catholic) and the state. However, the rule of adat has dominated their social system for a long time (Bayo, 2009). The contestation of power among adat, the church, and the state form a dynamic layered relationship, with adat (indigenous culture/tradition) as the core layer.

The people of Flores Timur are known in general as Lamaholot people. The lineage of Lamaholot does not consist of a single tribe but several. They call themselves Lamaholot people because they use the same language, and not because of their origins. There is heterogeneity in their histories of origin, tribes, dialects, philosophies and ways of life (Battery 1984, in Taum, 1997). Discussions about this often trigger fierce debate among those with power. The difficulty in settling these disputes is because there are no written manuscripts. The traditions, rituals and stories of the ancestors are verbally passed down from generation to generation. The most common consensus among Flores Timur society about their origins is that they are the descendants of the volcanoes in Flores Timur such Ile Jadi or Ile boleng (Taum, 1997). There are many versions on who claims to have the closest connection to Ile jadi (Bayo, 2009). Disputes on who is the first and direct descendants of a volcano sometimes becomes an endless conflict because it is related to who has the right to become a landlord (tuan tanah). The Flores Timur concept of alandlord is different from Europe. A tuan tanah only has the right to give permission for people to live and cultivate the land but do not have any rights to the harvest, taxes or rent. Despite disputes about tribes, Taum (1997) categorizes two indigenous tribes Paji and Demon as descending from Ile jadi and two other tribes as being immigrants: the Tena mau and Sina jawa. The Tena mau came to Flores Timur from the eastern part of the island, while the Sina jawa came from the western part of the archipelago. Other categories made by scholars are the similarity of dialect and language. There are five indigenous Lamaholot tribes: Lamaholot Barat (people who live in the western part of Flores Timur), Lamaholot Tengah (people who live in Tanjung Bunga, Adonara,

38

Solor and west part of Lembata), Labala (southern part of Lembata) and Kedang (eastern part of Lembata). Mixed marriages and connectivity give current Flores Timur more uniformity in its visible cultural patterns, despite having different past genealogies. People in Flores Timur have a unique bond with the place they live in (Taum, 1997). They distinguish themselves through the village where they live, known locally as a kampung. Kampung can be smaller or bigger than smallest state administrative area of the desa. In English, both words are translated as 'village' even though desa is different from kampung. Desa can consist of several kampung, although sometimes kampung has the same area as desa. Desa is measured by area, but kampung is related to adat. In the kampung, social bonding goes beyond their genealogy, history or politics. However, the organizational pattern is based on genealogical structure. The clan is another important social group. The smallest social group is not a family but extended to the people of the same clan. Every individual rights and obligations are devoted to clan interest. At kampung and desa level they have a traditional form of government based on the right and authority of several clans proclaimed as a landlord or land ruler. There are some ruling clans such as koten, kelen, hurint and maran. A ruling clan decides their position in an ancient animal sacrifice ceremony. Those clans are called ata kebelen or ata tuang which means 'royal' or 'great' clan. Great clans and kelake (shaman) play a major role in society especially in relation to adat, rituals and land arrangements.9 Society recognizes that the royal clan's ancestors were the first people to cultivate the land or win wars. Ata kabelen has a higher social status and greater authority. The other less powerful clans and people with no clan relations are categorized as commoners or ata ribu. I noticed that ata kabelen does not only refer to clans but also people who are financially stronger or have a position in the state government. In the past, the ata kabelen and landlord descendants were usually appointed as the official village leader or Kepala desa. Now, state power and democratization efforts are stronger. The official village leader is elected by direct village voting. This situation allows the less powerful clans to become the official village leader. The elected official village leader from less powerful clans sometimes need to ask the blessing and permission of the adat leaders to legitimize his leadership in the village. It increases the potential for conflict among clans because ata kabelen descendant usually have their own candidates.

III.2 ADAT IN EVERYDAY LIVE "Ola tugu, here happen, llua watana, Gere Kiwan, Pau kewa heka ana, Geleka lewo gewayan, toran murin laran"

This old proverb of Flores Timur reflects their way of provisioning. It means working on the farm, collecting tuak (traditional alcoholic drinks from palm sugar), finding shellfish, working on the mountain, providing needs of the family, serving the homeland, and greeting or accepting guests. From the proverb above, we can see that farming and food provisioning has a significant role in their everyday lives. Flores Timur society sees farming as not only for fulfilling needs and producing commodities but also as a cultural expression. Farming is the interface between humans and nature, that needs to be managed carefully and include rituals to guarantee a good harvest. The

9

39 details of these rituals may vary from one kampung to another. However, the same pattern emerges regarding their farming rituals. The faces of adat are centered on beliefs in Rerawulan-Tanaekan, the relationship between God and man, heaven and earth. Rerawulan refers to the Almighty God who controls man and the whole world, whereas Tanaekan refers to humans, who are the servants of Rerawulan in their activities. Therefore, man must give gifts (sesajian, pao-bae, and huke) to obtain mercy (kuat- kemuha) from Rerawulan. This belief is reflected in rituals on every aspect of living such as marriage, farming, and funerals. Farming rituals revolve around their faith in Rerawulan-Tanaekan and seed goddess Tonuwujo. According to folklore, that all crops come from the body parts of Tonuwujo, who sacrificed herself to get seeds. Once upon a time, Tonuwujo was a woman who lived together with her seven brothers. The brothers were desperate to get seeds to grow on their land because there was no longer any food available. One night Tonuwujo received a prophecy that they could obtains seeds by sacrificing her body. She asked her brothers to mutilate her into seven parts, then bury them in seven different parts of their land. No one in the family agreed, but Tonuwujo insisted that this was the last possible effort to continue their existence. Tonuwujo asked her younger brother to kill her and bury her after eight days. After the eight days, all seven brothers went back to the land and scrutinized the place where Tonuwujo was buried. They found seven different plants growing: paddy, corn, sorghum, castle (pumpkin), jewawut (millet), bean, and tubers.10 Flores Timur people believe that rituals respecting Tonuwujo's sacrifice must be held in order to get a good harvest. They also believe in giving more respect to any women who help them in the field. They are forbidden to scold or harass their wife, mother, daughter or any women in the field. There are several rituals related to the farmer at the beginning of the planting season, as well as in the harvest season. They also have several reactive rituals such as rain-calling rituals and anti-famine rituals. At the start of the planting season, they bring their seed to the adat house or sacred place called nuba nara to seek a blessing from the highest God and to ask for mercy and good weather. They will sacrifice an animal and bring an offering. The rituals are closed by communal eating of the offerings. The ritual is also held in the middle of the farm fields. The rituals in the nuba nara usually involve the kampung stakeholder, while rituals in the field are the family's or clan's responsibility. Besides farming, Flores Timur people also have several other traditional side jobs such as making tuak, fishing, trading and recently, migrant work. Tuak and moke (traditional alcohol drinks) have been a part of social bonding. They serve tuak and moke in the adat ceremony, welcoming guests and encouraging casual conversation among people. Fishing is also the primary occupation in Flores Timur, especially who live near the shore. The clans or tribes who master fishing and spend most of the time in the sea are called orang laut. Most of this clan believe in Islam, and besides fishing they are also known as being good seamen and traders.

III.3 CATHOLICISM IN FLORES TIMUR Catholicism has been a part of Flores Timur society even before Indonesia's independence. The Portuguese introduced it to Flores society since the 16th and 17th century through the Dominican missionaries. After the Portuguese sold their territory to Dutch colonials, the mission was continued by Jesuit missionaries for several decades under the Dutch colonial government. Dutch

10interview clemens koten

40 colonial government strategically employed the role of the church in Flores Timur. In the early 20th century, the Dutch issued an 'ethical policy'. This policy focused on social development of the local community and creating stability by showing the benevolent face of the colonisers. Hence, the Jesuits were slowly being withdrawn from Indonesia, including Eastern Flores, and replaced by the Society of the Divine Word Missionaries (SVD or Societas Verbi Divini) which were more concerned in the building and organization of schools and other facilities, in addition to ‘ethical policy’ (Bayo, 2009). The colonial government and the church made a consensus in 1913 about the educational program. The church was entrusted to deliver all educational programs in Flores under colonial supervision, subsidization and cooperation (Ala 1989 in Bayo, 2009). This policy was very useful for the church to spread Catholicism. Therefore, at the beginning of the 20th century, the church significantly began to interact with the local community through a charitable approach. The church in East Flores had more concern for providing public services, especially the education, health and social development sectors. The universal church's (Vatican) policy has been shifting to influence the policies and characters of the Catholic Church at the local level. The shift aimed to create more open community- church relationships and adapt to the people's behavior, while also anticipating social change. It meant that the church had to work more at adapting to the customs of village life, a process termed ‘inculturation’ (Erb, 2007: 259 in Bayo, 2009). The church recognized the important of adat, as reflected in the interview below with priest Benyamin.

"I openly admit that once upon a time the church tried to dispel traditions and adatfrom Flores Timur agricultural livelihood. Now, we change to a church supporting tradition by adding ceremonies that facilitate tradition and the church mission. The church holds the seed blessing ceremony to complement the adat ceremony before growing food, so the adat/tradition remains intact and meanwhile, faith still can be maintained without any conflict with adat." 11

Today's state has increased its ability to provide public services like health and education. It creates a contestation of power between the state and church. The church's attempt at education and health services have been incorporated with the state. Some schools which were formerly run by the church has now been taken over financially by the government, while still keeping the Catholic curriculum inside. Some teachers of Catholic schools have become civil servants. The contest between church and state can be managed by both parties. The church now has more support for social development efforts through conflict resolution, charity, socio-economic development and food/agriculture aid.

THE EVOLUTION OF CHURCH SOCIAL-DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY The church has been developing their socio-economic development strategy beyond charity work. The church has been adapting and evolving toward shifting trends. The church made an organization that can work beyond the limits of the church. In 1975, the church in Larantuka as represented by the Larantuka bishop formed a new organization named Delsos or "Delagatus social". The main task of this organization is to facilitate and channel donations into socio-economic development projects. Delagatus social connects potential donors and programs to support the

11participant observation Priest Benyamin preach

41 church's socio-economic projects. Delsos created Yaspensel, an abbreviation of Yayasan Pengembangan Social Ekonomi Keuskupan Larantuka (Bishopric Larantuka Social, Economic Development Foundation), this organization works like an NGO under the wings of the church. This organization separated from Delsos and became a semi-autonomous foundation that is directly responsible to Larantuka Bishopric. These new forms of institutions allowed the church to strengthen their existence in Larantuka society. Delsos and Yaspensel were able to connect the church mission with diverse organizations and support, such as transnational NGOs, foreign governmental agencies and state- backed development programs. Some programs delivered by Delsos are:

1. Agriculture Rural-Agro Enterprise Development, Food Security in cooperation with Catholic Relief service CRS/ID-USCC and agribusiness incubator with national government 2. Local food security with AusAID and Antara 3. Microfinance and credit union mainstreaming 4. Technology information dissemination 5. Migrant worker family empowerment

Yaspensel reaches grassroots level support and incorporates homegrown activists compared to development programs from outside sources. Yaspensel recently worked with Yayasan Cinta Alam Pertanian (YCAP), a pioneer in the local food movement in Flores. Yaspensel facilitates homegrown movement initiatives, and works bottom up towards national recognition. The strategy taken by the church was effective for maintaining their power in Flores Timur. About 90% of Flores Timur society are Catholic. However, the Catholic Church's influence is fragile and continuously contested.

III. 4 THE STATE The existence of the state in Flores Timur is represented by roads, office buildings, public services such as school and hospital, army, police and courts. The best description of the state's position in Flores is Foucault's statement about the modern state. He argued, "the state is no more than a composite reality, and a mythologized abstraction" (Melossi, 2006). State work at the local level is intertwined with many factors, local politics and institutions. At the practical level, adat plays an important symbolic role in state governmental practice. As the Bupati (Head of Regency) of Flores Timur is perceived as the King, his official state inauguration also requires adat rituals beforehand (Bayo, 2009).

FIGURE 6 STATE REPRESENTATION IN THE VILLAGE

42

State food and agriculture policy at the local level are hierarchical arrangements represented by several institutions:

1. Flores Timur agriculture department (Dinas Pertanian Flores Timur) 2. Flores Timur food security and extension agency (Badan Ketahanan Pangan Dan Penyuluhan Flores Timur) 3. Subdistrict agriculture, fisheries and forestry extension office (Badan penyuluh pertanian, perikanan dan kehutanan tingkat kecamatan) 4. Village extension agent

The implementation of agricultural food policy at the local level is far from ideal. Local level government institutions are only passive outposts of national food policy, merely reporting and collecting data. There is barely any visible efforts on local food development or empowering the community. They only wait for the national budget allocation from the special program, rather than use any resource creatively under the decentralization policy. Flores Timur-FSA officials admit their negligence, in this interview excerpt:

He said, "We have limited actions on local food because there is no local government budget allocated for this program. However, we try to incorporate local food almost every day. When the extension agent goes to a village working on the national program, we try to insert a little bit of local food. For example, to hold a competition with a menu of local food, but we still put very limited effort on this."12

They hope the national budget for local food dissemination would be as big as the special effort on three national commodities of rice, corn, and soybean. This interview excerpt reflects the implementation of national policy on local food, as explained in the chapter above. I wrote about local food that is never being prioritized by the national government. The national level stakeholders depend on local governments to have more concern about their local food. In fact, the local government do not give much attention to local food sources precisely because there is no national budget allocation for their efforts. This is highlighted in an interview with national food security agency:

"Now we depend on the local government's commitment to local food. Regency level or local level commitment is important in our effort to disseminate local food sources other than rice. if they (local government) realize about their local food potential and the importance of their sovereignty, we hope they can create a critical mass to push the national government to put more support on local food."13

The local and national governments shift the responsibility of supporting local food to each other. This tension between national and local governments creates a destructive interference and the impression that the state neglects local food diversity and all related practices. In the past, when the authoritarian new order regime was still in power, the state had immense power to influence

12interview yos molan 13interview rinaBKP

43 people, with some government programs changing livelihoods forever. Bayo (2009) argued that Flores Timur society has three strong forces shaping their everyday life: adat (a local institution), the church (Catholic) and the state. The contestation between the three forces shapes the reality of food provisioning strategies and sometimes leads to unintended effects. Flores Timur's life-world is formed not only by the force of visible suspected actors because the people and farmers also adapt and resist to survive. Religion and adat, representing conservative power in Flores Timur, are also never free from the changes and influence from the outer situation. Below, I reflect on the power dynamics and actors in the everyday lives of people.

FIGURE 7 POWER DYNAMIC AND ACTOR SHIFT

There was some level of discontent with the three local powers on farming and agriculture. Farmers realized they needed to find a counterbalancing power and support to survive in the ever- changing situation. It resulted in the rise of new powers such as NGOs and direct market connections. The market was supported and facilitated by the state. What I mean by 'market' here is the global and national trade in food and agriculture. Flores Timur is incorporated in this system, and is getting stronger along with the national development policy. The government brought infrastructure and opened up access, causing Flores Timur people to participate more in the market and further monetizing their way of life. The unintended effect of this development is apparent in Flores Timur society. As they are more likely to be involved in the market economy, the pressure towards money-making activity is increased. Farmers are the ones who are severely affected by the escalation. Farmers act as producers and consumers. As a producer, the farmer has less choice and diversity in the mode of production. They are no longer able to do farming as an activity to provide both family food needs and the market. As a consumer, farmers face the uncomfortable choice of engaging with the new form of the market with only money as the means of exchange. Farmers as consumers also facing the violence of advertising that promotes a narrative of modernity. The growing pressure limits the farmer's room for maneuver due to growing needs for cash. The farmer gets into a delicate situation. Farmer participation in the market economy has indeed created new opportunities for maneuver. On the other hand, it makes them vulnerable to the unfair competition of capital accumulation. The unintended shift set up by the hegemony of agricultural development is unable to be anticipated or facilitated by the conservative power-holder. The effect was rather wild and predatory which makes the conservative unable to clearly respond and even become permissive. It creates a void; a space for the opportunity to accommodate changes. NGOs and movements were able to take advantage this void to further organize changes in food provision

44 in Flores Timur. NGOs and movements provide room for the farmer's subtle resistance and disagreement into dynamic visible advocacy political actions, which are continuously evolving and gaining recognition.

III. 4 THE RISING OF NEW ACTORS (MOVEMENT AND NGO CONSORTIUM) Flores Timur is the perfect place to see the atrocious effects of the dominant food policy and its continuity. Although Flores is known for its malnutrition issues, the problem is not the lack of food but choice and diversity. Flores Timur used to have diverse local commodities to cope with the harsh climate and regular droughts. But the government's mono-cropping policies of the last 30 years have washed away the diversity and worsened the area's ecological vulnerability.

BACKGROUND AND HISTORY One local movement to restore food diversity in the area by reintroducing local seeds and practices is called Yayasan Cinta Alam Pertanian (Love for Nature's Farming or YCAP). Maria Loretha founded this movement in 2007. Maria and her colleagues made an effort to recover local knowledge by reintroducing underutilized local crops such as sorghum, jewawut, jelai red rice, black rice, and corn. These crops require low inputs, are ideal for dry land, and can be harvested up to three times a year. Maria and her foundation believe that by maintaining local food diversity, communities in the remote islands can be resilient against natural disasters and inconsistent food supplies from outside their regions. Maria supports alternative local food that is built on small farmer’s organizations at the grassroots level. The foundation aims to strengthen the small farmer’s capacity to rehabilitate and disseminate knowledge about local farming techniques and seeds, thus turning the farmers into innovators. YCAP and Maria Loretha succeeded in collecting and planting more than 30 local varieties and facilitating more than 1000 farmers (Wang, 2015). Maria and her network are not only working at the local level but also spreading their message at the national level. YCAP started with a small farm in Pajinian, West Adonara. Maria Loretha and her husband Jerry Letor were the initiators of this movement. Maria originally came from Borneo Island and spent her childhood until college in Java. Her husband was a native of Flores Timur but spent most of his time outside of the are. They moved back to Flores Timur 19 years ago. After several attempts at opening a business and acquiring a job, in 2005 they chose to live on a family heritage land and start a small farm. Maria and her husband did not have any background in agriculture – she holds a bachelor of law while her husband studied engineering – and were considered 'over-qualified' compared to the average farmer in Indonesia. Their land was fully a cashew plantation, but they decided to open half of it to grow food crops. They tried several commodities like red bean and red rice, fulfilling the family's food needs from the farm and cash needs from the coconut and cashew nut. Maria's husband also occasionally worked as a construction supervisor. Maria experienced a lot of challenges in farming, especially when rain came less often than expected. She looked for help and guidance from the local agricultural office and also learned from local farmers. At the local agricultural office, the agricultural extension agent advised her to plant hybrid corn and selected cassava breeds. The officer taught her to use chemical fertilizers and other modern agriculture intensification techniques. She thought that to start that type of farming, she would need a lot of initial cash and also steady markets to buy inputs for the next planting season. She found that the industrial mode of agriculture was not always the best one. She said, "Even if we follow all the recipes of modern agriculture, the yield is unpredictable because there is a lot of uncertainty involved." She continued to search for an alternative. She observed the local farmers and found a

45 fascinating fact: they could start farming with almost no cash at all. They also adapted and survived in the harsh nature. She realized that farmers had effective methods of farming to cope with any harsh conditions. The locals used less inputs and planted a variety of plants at any one time, so if one plant failed they still had other crops to eat. She observed that the keys to success were the diversity of crops and the low-input farming technique. After this striking reality, he got more involved with the local farming method and campaigned for local plant variety. The main plant that attracted her attention was local sorghum, because this was a crop that had been almost totally forgotten by farmers. If asked why she chose sorghum and why she got involved in the local food movement, she will only give a humble answer. She became attached to sorghum after her neighbor gave her a bowl of tasty sorghum porridge. She fell in love with local food and tried to find seeds to be able to cultivate it. It was the beginning of her involvement in the food movement. However, the real answer is more complicated and complex: she gave her effort and commitment to the local food movement because the potential of sorghum was more than a bowl of porridge. She saw the potential of the future development of local varieties and the compatibility of crops to nature. For farmers, this means less hassle when preparing their land for food.

ORGANIZATION AND EVOLUTION OF MOVEMENT She started collecting local seeds around Flores Timur which she then multiplied on her land. In 2007, she first traveled around the district of Ile Bura to find local sorghum seeds. On this journey, she successfully bought 10 kilograms of sorghum seeds for Rp 150,000 (US$15). She succeeded in growing this crop in her farm. Since then, local foods and mainly sorghum has become her obsession. She distributed sorghum seeds among her family and to any farmer who wanted to plant those seeds. She gave it to farmers with one requirement: she must witness the planting herself. She did not want them to waste her seeds because she had put a lot of effort into seed collection and keeping a seed bank repository. She also formed farmer groups called 'Cap Sembilan' to help the expansion of the movement. These groups were not formal organizations with a well-managed structure but just a group of people with the same vision. The name was picked because the movement needed a cap, or formal organization representation. She opened up new networks and maintained her past networks to expand the local food movement. Some government officials and government-backed NGOs gave her guidance in agricultural and facilitation techniques. She involved the government-backed fisherman and farmer forums in Flores Timur. In 2010, she introduced sorghum and her movement at the fisherman and farmer forum meeting. Since then, the movement has been growing like a wild ball, with many farmers declaring their interest. Maria continues her work. She is able to reach more villages and farmer groups. Her background in law makes her a good persuader and communicator. Her relentless actions have shown a fantastic result. Recognition came not only from Flores Timur but also NTT province. She expanded the movement to another regency in NTT. She reached about 34 farmer groups in eight regencies: Manggarai Barat, Ende, Nakegeo, Sumba Timur, Rote Ndao, Lembata, Sikka, and Flores Timur. She received awards from the NTT governor, and awards and appreciation from several institutions. In 2011, she received the award from East Nusa Tenggara governor. She also won East Nusa Tenggara’s 2011 Academic Award for science and technical innovation. The following year, Maria won the KEHATI award. Maria draws attention from media and is gaining more popularity. She appears on the popular talk shows on one of the biggest national TV channels. The national and local newspaper has written about her several times. She received the Ashoka Fellowship in 2013. Wetlands and Caritas recruited Maria as a field facilitator for local food development. This

46 opportunity expanded Maria's network and raised financial support. The movement has grown, but Maria does not yet have a formal organization. After all those awards, Maria was advised by other NGOs and her friends in Cap Sembilan to make the organization formal in order to attract more donors and increase the accountability of the organization. She formalized her activity and registered as a yayasan or perhimpunan (foundation). The movement was echoed all over NTT, and not only in Flores Timur. In 2014, YCAP and fellow farmers from all the regencies of Flores were initiated into a regional network of local food farmers called Perhimpunan Petani Pangan Lokal NTT (P3L-NTT) or East Nusa Tenggara Local Food Farmer Network. They meet at the annual event called rembug pangan and festival benih. In this forum, farmers meet each other and share their local knowledge and trade local seeds. A government official, NGO and academic community also participated in this event. In 2015, food talks were held in West Manggarai regency. The figure below shows several local activists and volunteers working with YCAP and Yaspensel.

FIGURE 8 VOLUNTEERS AND ACTIVISTS OF YASPENSEL AND YCAP

The popularity and novelty of the food movement have been attracting local power holders. After Maria attended conferences in Rome as a CARITAS representative and also appeared in the media, the bishop of Larantuka became interested in supporting the movement. Maria saw this as an opportunity to expand the movement using the church network. Yaspensel, as a church-backed NGO had been reasserted. The bishop appointed one of Maria's comrades in the movement with a religious background: Father Benyamin Daud as the Director. Since then, Yaspensel works together with YCAP as a consortium to execute more programs in local food development. Yaspensel gets the benefit of the expertise and popularity of Maria Loretha, while YCAP gets political, infrastructural and network support from the church. In 2014, this consortium succeeded in launching a full-scale local food program in Kawalelo, followed by a sorghum harvest celebration. Yaspensel, YCAP, and Kawalelo farmers worked together to grow five varieties of sorghum in the 40-hectare land and about 120 tons of sorghum were harvested in 2015. They held a ceremony to celebrate, by inviting all stakeholders related to agriculture, policy makers and also a religious leader. The bishop and the NTT governor attended this event. The NGO consortium hoped to deliver their message on local food. The NGO action is intended to give an example to all policy makers about the potential of local food varieties and agriculture techniques. They hope that the government can respond to this issue and prioritize local food development. It was intended as a productive protest toward the government agricultural policy. I manage to wrap up some important markers of the movement in chronological order in the figure below.

47

FIGURE 9 YCAP EVOLUTION

FARMER ENGAGEMENT Yaspensel and YCAP work using church networks, while the church uses its influence and resources to support the movement. The three primary activities of the NGO consortium are facilitation and dissemination of local food and sustainable farming technique, stakeholder engagement, and income generating activities. They frame all their activities within a cultural and religious approach. The NGO employs adat and ancestral relations as their entry point. The church, which has significant influence in society, uses a faith and repentance approach. The church has a vast network, from the national to the lowest level of community. The NGO employs this network to expand the movement. Local food has now reached the church altar. The priest is encouraged to preach about local food and the importance of working together. The NGO consortium would visit a target village several times before deciding to start the program. The first visit usually addresses small groups of the elite in the village and also the community leaders. In the second visit, they usually set a general meeting with the farmers. The NGO will only proceed with the program if the community shows agreement and commitment. The NGO will help the community to organize farmer groups and consolidate future program planning. While the farmer tailors the suitable future agenda, the NGO initiates the pilot program, introducing the local seeds and techniques. They introduced a sorghum planting program. Sorghum seeds are distributed freely among farmer groups. They n turn must ensure that their members will plant sorghum. The NGO takes an inventory of the farm area assigned to grow local food with traditional farming techniques. The NGO also deploys a facilitator agent that will live in the village and help the farmer in their first planting of sorghum. The facilitator will teach farmers how to plant sorghum and also share knowledge about the superiority of traditional farming techniques. The facilitator makes sure that the groups are working and consolidating the farmers. The NGO collaborates closely with

48 the farmer and respects the farmer's experiences. Thus, the NGO creates strong grassroots engagement with the farmers.

FIGURE 10 NGO VILLAGE VISIT AND CONSOLIDATION

The NGO tries to bring back farming rituals by asking if there are any rituals before planting. If so, they will support this ritual by providing the needed resources. The church holds a seed blessing mass to complement traditional farming rituals. The NGO's effort in bringing back the adat makes farmers feel respected, while the church blessing gives them an optimistic attitude towards the program. The NGO encourages farmers to consume their sorghum crops either as food or feed. If there is a crop surpluses, the NGO consortium also prepares the buffer market. Maria says, “The market for sorghum is growing continuously, people here are starting to look for sorghum after our successful big harvest in Kawalelo.” Maria says, “It is not only the NGO's moral obligation to be a bridge the between market and farmer but also an interesting point to attract farmers planting sorghum.”

Some farmers have forgotten how to cook and process sorghum. The NGO also provides the knowledge of how to process sorghum for daily consumption or for other more valuable cuisines. Maria says, “The NGO consortium urges the collaboration between the traditional techniques of preparing sorghum with more modern processing to produce more a desirable food product and help women farmers generate income.” The NGO consortium noticed that one of the farmer problems was debt. So after they succeeded in introducing local food, they introduced financial literacy and community credit unions. They hope that these can be the solution to the farmers' temporary cash needs. A farmer tends to fall easily into debt when they need emergency cash for funerals, healthcare and education. Farmers can avoid loan sharks and reduce the need to sell land for cash by working with the community credit union.

ADVOCACY AND CAMPAIGN The NGO actively advocates local food policy to the local government and national government. They always invite a government official to farmer meetings to give evidence about the advantages of local food to the farmer and community in general. In 2015, they worked together with the local house of representatives to propose a bill on local food development. They are also

49 actively involved in several national exhibitions, meetings and conferences to expand networks, all while showing the public about the advantages of local food. The NGO works in close collaboration with the mainstream media to spread the story about their achievement. They use social media to promote local food and farmers in Flores Timur. Their campaign was effective since it managed to dominate the news and received a featured article about sorghum in Indonesia. The NGO consortium works with any media, for local and national publicity. Their fellow national NGO network helps them to stay under the 'spotlight'. Recently, they use social media most intensively. The NGO consortium seems to have succeeded so far in maintaining the regional and local food farmer networks. They have held an annual food farmer meeting and seed festival for three consecutive years.

CHALLENGE The movement has been evolving from an unorganized movement into an NGO-like organization. The sudden transformation can cause some problems, especially toward their primary clients: farmers. Flores is known as the 'thousand NGO island' as many NGOs are competing for each other to exert their influence in Flores. Some NGOs are accountable, but a dozen of them are corrupt. Some farmers feel a little bit irritated with other NGO-like programs because they feel cheated and manipulated. They offer a lot of programs but sometimes have no impact whatsoever to the farmers, causing them to become more cautious. Farmers may show a 'wait and see' attitude, so only the committed NGOs can implement programs. YCAP and Yaspensel depend on donor money to implement the program, so they are under pressure to deliver the program in the given time. This condition has made the NGO consortium less sensitive to farmer's voices. Maria admitted the weakness and limitations of the NGO. The NGO consortium is continuously trying to fund their activity with new schemes such as social businesses. They hope this can be a source of stable funding. With stable funding, they hope to be able focus more on facilitation and engagement with farmers.

50

IV. FARMER PRACTICES AND EVERYDAY POLITICS

I examined this phenomenon in four villages in the Flores Timur, which represent the diversity of landscapes, people and farming dynamics. I draw upon my interviews with NGOs and the government to point out crossroads between the state's agricultural program and the NGO's local food movement. I examine these to show the responses and friction between existing livelihoods and agricultural programs brought by the government, NGOs and the church.

IV.1 FARMER PRACTICES IN FOUR VILLAGES My interview with local food NGO consortium leader Maria Loreta reveals that her NGO and farmers have been working on the local food movement in almost all areas in Flores Timur, even in other regencies such as Ende, Rote, Sumba Barat and Manggarai Barat. I asked which villages in Flores Timur showed signs of successful intervention or otherwise. The NGO consortium mentioned the adobera group in Ratulodong village several times. She says, “Ratulodong farmers respond very well to the local food movement.” She highlights the successful sorghum harvest attended by the Governor of NTT in Kawalelo village. She claims that in 2014, Kawalelo farmers produced 80 tons of local sorghum under her local food diversity program. The village was chosen by Maria because of its unforgiving topography, poverty, and remoteness. The NGO wants to show that local varieties and local techniques can generate good yields under harsh conditions. Kawalelo attracted much attention and publicity in Flores Timur society. The Chief of Flores Timur food security agency mentioned Maria Loretha's NGO success in Kawalelo, and he acknowledged the important role of her NGO in the local food campaign.14

I interviewed the secretary of an agricultural agency in Flores Timur about local food. She mentioned the success of Kawalelo and the NGO's involvement in local food.15 She admits that the government does not place any priority on local food. However, recently she initiated one such program: the agriculture department distributed local sorghum seeds in several villages in Titehena district. Farmers in Serinuho, one of the villages in Titehena district, also joined with the NGO consortium (YCAP and Yaspensel).

Maria started this movement from farm land in Pajinian, where she lived with her family. Maria spoke of farmers there who threw away seeds, which does not agree with the story of a successful movement. She admitted that farmers in Pajinian are unable to follow the NGO program due to limited land and poverty. Thus, it sparked my curiosity about the response of Pajinian farmers.

From the initial information and discussions among local food movement stakeholders, I chose to examine farmer everyday politics in these four villages: Ratulodong, Kawalelo, Pajinian and Serinuho. The figure below indicates the location of these villages in relation to the capital of Larantuka.

14 Yos Molan, Local FSA-Flores timur, 17-11-2015 15Ibu Udith, Flores Timur Agriculture Department 18-11-2015

51

I argue that these villages represent the everyday politics and practices of Flores Timur farmers, because of environmental diversity, socio-agricultural dynamics and power contestations. I suspect that farmers in these four villages have their own responses to the program. They are actively engaged, complying and modifying to serve their livelihood needs rather than merely following program objectives. Farmer actions that contest norms and rules, regard authority that influence their livelihood through subtle mundane and unorganized work, can be categorized under the notion of everyday politics (Kerkvliet, 2009). According to this concept, Flores Timur farmers express their dissatisfaction with the conservative and newer power struggles around them. Everyday politics are embedded in their livelihood dynamic strategies.

FIGURE 11 LOCATIONS OF VILLAGES AND CAPITAL

RATULODONG VILLAGE (THE IDEALIST) Ratulodong, the capital of Tanjung Bunga sub-district, is about 28 km north of Larantuka. This village passes by an asphalt road, whose proximity makes a significant difference to livelihoods. The village has decent infrastructure, a proper school, church, clinic and is easily accessible from the capital either by motorcycle or by public transport. There are 399 households, and almost 49 families are as classified poor (BPS, 2015). About 66% of Ratulodong villagers are farmers. Ratulodong is located near a forest that provides water and another resources. About half of the area in Tanjung Bunga are steep slopes, with some farmers farming on them. Road access makes it easier to access goods or jobs in the capital city. This village gets 24-hour electricity. Water comes from a spring in the forest nearby. The villagers set up a community distribution line. There is enough water here for everyday needs but the in the dry season they need to go further into the jungle to fetch water. The people in Ratulodong are friendly and open to guests.

Farming and agriculture are taken literally as a culture here, as almost every step in the production of food is accompanied by rituals. Adat (tradition) is the center of their life. Villagers are more likely to participate in adat activities than go for mass at church. They still keep rituals alive not only for small individual ceremonies like funerals or marriages but also bigger community ceremonies such as the Tonuwujo ceremony. Their agriculture is semi-swidden: occupying two or more plots to produce food and using only one during a planting season and letting the other rest for

52 the next season. They have a fixed plot of land used for cash crops such as cashew nut, coconut, cacao, candle nut and coffee. They sell some forest resources such as honey, and hunt game to provide the daily protein intake. They also plant vegetables for sale, made possible by water availability and ease of access to the market in the capital. Farming conditions in Ratulodong are promising. They have abundant land, water and good harvests that serve their food needs and allow the sale of surpluses and another resources in the market. They maintain good social cohesion among people and adat is still the center of life. The family, clan system, kampung (neighborhood) fulfills their function as a form of social security.

I met the farmers to find out more about how their livelihoods have changed and how they cope with current conditions. I asked about their perceptions about the developing discourse on food provision. In the first village Ratulodong, I met with Yos Mukin (36), one of the secretaries of adobera farmer groups in that area. He expressed their support for the local food movement. He lives with his wife and three kids. He originally came from Tenawahang village, 50 km away from Tanjung Bunga but still in the Flores Timur regency. He is married to one of the high and respected clans called Kotens. His family income comes from cashew nut, vegetable, wild forest honey and a part-time job as school administrator helper.

He grows food crops for their family. Yos Mukin and his wife work together in a quarter hectare of land reserved for family food. He graduated from high school – a higher education level compared to other farmers of his age. He is a handy and clever farmer, managing his land to produce different crops all year around.

“It's possible to grow sellable commodities in the area because the water availability is good. If you take the little bit effort to bring water to your land, you can have a good yield, and you can sell them in the capital.16 Only a few farmers follow my advice, as they only occupy the land in the planting season, which is at the beginning of the rainy season. After they harvest the main crops such as corn, rice, and pumpkin, they will abandon the land until the next planting season.”

He took a different route in using the land. After securing enough staple crops for family consumption, he prepares to plant other commodities such as vegetabless. Access to water however, is a challenge. He carries 20 liters of water on his shoulders from the spring to his plot, which is about a kilometer away. He says that farming vegetables demands hard work but the income is relatively good. He expresses his interest in plant commodities that can grow with less water, like local sorghum: “It can give me more yield with less effort.”17 He stated that more diverse food products is a good choice, especially when it comes to a long forgotten plant variety such as sorghum, as it creates the opportunity for fellow farmers to cope with the change of climate and obtain more diverse food for consumption and trade.18

He states that government subsidies do not help him at all. These subsidies of fertilizer and hybrid corn seeds are not favored by most farmers there. Farmers there prefer local corn seeds, which are free. For him, fertilizers are not much help because they create addiction: farmers will not

16 yos mukin, 17-11-2015 17yos mukin, 17-11-2015 18yos mukin 20-12-2016

53 be able to afford them if the government stops the subsidies. He continued that subsidies give him more hassles than advantages. He gave an example: if he wants to use fertilizer, he needs to carry 25kg of fertilizer from his house to the farm. He stated that he didn't want to lose more money, time and energy on fertilizers. For now, he thinks that his harvest is more than enough for him and his family.19

In my second visit to Yos Mukin's farm, he told me about his farming methods. He mentioned the use of herbicides, which goes against the NGO's point of view. He uses herbicides and I asked for his opinion on them.

“It helps a lot to clean my farm from weeds before planting starts. With the herbicide, I can clear the whole farm faster and need less labor. I realize that my farming practices are not perfect, I try to minimize the use of herbicide at only the beginning of planting season because at that time all farmers are busy preparing their own land, so I got short-handed here in the field, so I decided to use herbicide. If there's organic herbicide, I'd be willing to use it.”

He then tells the story of how agriculture is part of the tradition here. Farmers get together in groups to catch up with the rain. He claims that working together in groups is embedded in the tradition and is called gemohing. Farmers work together on one particular farm on one day, and on the next day they work on another farm. The farmer groups manage the rotation of work such that they are able to help all members. Farmer groups also help each other especially during seed planting, which has to be done in a relatively short time. It reduces the workload and also facilitates the exchange of labor which reduces the need for cash. Gemohing is not only applied in farming but also building houses and public infrastructure. “We have everything: food, water, and building materials. But our real scarcity is money, so if we can wisely overcome the problem, we can actually use the cash for more urgent needs such as school, healthcare and family events.”

FIGURE 12 A FARMER'S TYPICAL FARM HOMESTEAD IN RATULODONG

He supports the food diversity movement because it fits with the culture and nature in this village. He argues that the program from the NGO has more respect for local resources, farmer aspirations and farmer knowledge than that by the government.

19yos mukin 20-12-2016

54

"I tried many times to express my voice about the agriculture subsidies to the government but they never heard me, and the small farmers like me are never recognized. If the government can take advantages of local varieties and make some program out of it maybe the agricultural subsidies can have more results than just repeating the same recipe since Soeharto's presidency.”20

He does not oppose the government program, but dislikes their approach in the community. The government officials rarely discuss or talk to farmers or villagers before launching a program or policy that influences their lives. He gave an example of the newly claimed forest boundaries. The government official never discussed with the villagers as to where to put the boundaries and never asked the villagers for help. Yos Mukin said, "They (government) enforced the forest boundaries in one of the villager plots without further discussion with the community. Although the village chief and clan leader had already agreed about the old forest boundaries since the Dutch colonials, the forestry department official from Larantuka never considered it and stretched the boundaries of our farming land. It was entirely different when the NGO program brought the food diversification program. The NGO tried to respect the adat here, and they bring a good mission as to how a farmer can have more choice and opportunity to provide food. They promote local varieties to diverse our primary food production beyond rice and corn so we can fulfill our needs from our land.” Yos Mukin shows his approval of the food sovereignty project by the NGO.

"I agree with that but the most important is that I have an opportunity in the future to reduce cash needs and or gain more cash from these crops. I can consume sorghum to diversify our family diet then I can reduce our expenses, or I can have more surplus commodities with less input and effort. For example, I can sell it to the market as a surplus commodity".

Clemens Koten (63) is another farmer I met. He belongs to a noble clan in Ratulodong and also acts as a farmer group leader. He said that the food movement gives the opportunity of preserving local ancestral plant varieties and at the same time, makes them economically viable. He said that he believes that local plant varieties could be the answer to their difficulties. Unpredictable rain and weather makes farmers suffer. Farmers already have local plant varieties with high adaptability to drought and which are low maintenance. Clemens Koten started farming at an early age. He told me how past farmers planted diverse crops in a circular pattern to avoid famine.21 He argues that the use of local varieties can bring back farmer's pride in local food. He feels that government agricultural subsidies do not address local potential. Instead. they bring a new type of corn and planting techniques. Farmers do not adopt the new seed because it does not fit the needs of the farmer. The hybrid corn cannot be stored for an extended period in the traditional barn and the taste is less preferable when compared to the local ones. The hybrid corn also serves only one purpose, while there are different type of maize for various purposes: white corn for mashed corn, yellow ones for corn rice and purple corn for mixing with other food.

The multi-functionality of crops is necessary for the farmer. Diverse crops help the farmer to cope with different pests. In the past, the taller local sorghum stalks were used to protect the shorter stalk crops like corn and rice. Jewawut crops would be the first line of protection from rats and wild boars, because they grow higher above the ground. The wild boars and rats will eat this plant first

20 Yos mukin 17-11-2015 21 Clemens Koten 17-11-2015

55 and get full before they could attack the most high maintenance and valuable corn and local rice crops inside the perimeter. This technique is already being practiced for more than centuries, and is one example of local ingenuity towards an unforgiving nature. The practice is never considered necessary or ingenious by the state's agricultural extension agent. Instead, they preach about fertilizer, hybrid seeds and input-intensive techniques which they claim will bring bigger yields. Clemens Koten argues against hybrid corn:

"Yes, maybe those hybrids have a higher yield but we need to buy seeds every planting season and fertilizer, something which needs more cash and we don't like to spend cash on something that we can find in nature.”22

The resources, access to market and social dynamic of this village suggest that these farmers most likely fit in with the utopian idealization of the 'middle peasant'. Li (2014) argues about the central role of this 'middle peasant' mode in food sovereignty movements. She defines the 'middle peasant' as "a cautious figure who might well desire wealth, but is guided by a strong aversion to market risk and ecological concern." Their context fits in with the nature of food sovereignty movement, so the campaign is well-supported. They have independent farmer groups with a rather tidy organization and apparent commitment to re-planting local food without any extra incentives. Farmers such as Yos Mukin have enough yield and cash to try a new variety and a new approach to farming without worrying too much about their existing practices. He criticizes the government program, which is usually useless. He follows the NGO program because he realizes the future potential and advantages of the new local variety of sorghum. This sorghum can produce a high yield with minimal inputs and traditional techniques. He is aware that government subsidies have embraced agricultural modernization. For him, modernized agriculture means more cash to run the farm. He admits that the yield could be higher but since the costs are also higher there is not much sense in following the state logic of agricultural development.

KAWALELO (THE OPPORTUNIST) Kawalelo is located 25 km from Larantuka on the south coast of Flores Timur. Kawalelo falls under the Demon Pagong sub-district. The village is not easy to access, as half of the road to the village is full of dirt and stones. There is no public transport as the closest bus station is about 15 km from the village. Although the road is of dangerous condition, the villagers are still grateful because before there was no road at all. Before this access road was built, they used a boat. Kawalelo is far away from the electricity grid, with only half of population receiving electricity. The electricity service lasts only 12 hours, with a routine total blackout every three days. Only elementary and junior high schools are available. In the past, they faced difficult livelihoods but conditions now are getting better, with the road and water reservoir.

Kawalelo is located in the one of the driest parts of Flores Timur. The area consists of a beach, seashore, plain open land surrounded by a rocky hill, with sparse vegetation. Kawalelo has only one water spring, with a limited volume for the entire village. This water is used by villagers for household needs. There is not enough water for daily needs in the dry seasons. Farming depends entirely on rain water. They plant cash crops such as cashew nut and tamarind. The nature conditions do not allow for an optimum yield for these cash crops. Farmers have various other livelihood

22clemens koten 17-11-2015

56 strategies such as fishing, cash crops, herding livestock, unskilled labor in the capital city and migrant work. Now, most of the cash comes from fishing activity.

Kawalelo is divided into three kampungs (Bao uran and Wolo wutun) Teneden and Likotuden. There are about 158 families living there with more than 13.6% of them categorized as poor (BPS, 2015). There is no individually owned land. Anyone can ask for land from the landlord for housing and farming. Farmers can farm anywhere in the village area as far as they are capable. The challenge there is water and the unforgiving topography. Kawalelo is under church control via several church- backed programs. The church gives them many development programs and austerity, so the villagers have a debt of gratitude to the church. These programs are a source of church influence in this area. Hence it is easy to tap on this influence when the church needs community support for their new program related to the local food movement.

Andreas (38) is a farmer in Kawalelo. He is chief of sub-village Likotuden, located on the far side of Kawalelo. He explains that farming in Kawalelo and especially Likotuden is not easy. Rocky soil and steep slopes are the everyday reality they face on their farm. He is highly dependent on the rain. Every year, farmers gamble with the rain. If the rain is good, they get enough yield for one year until the next planting season. If the rain is insufficient, they can only produce enough food reserves for one or two months - but sometimes even nothing. He has cash crops such as tamarind and cashew nut. He said that the yield of cash crops in Kawalelo is not optimal compared to other areas. So he fulfills his cash needs by fishing and herding livestock.23

He said that the food from the farm is never enough for family consumption in one year. People tend to buy food from the market or other villages. He explains that drought, pests and rocky soil are daily challenges.

“We don't have decent fresh water springs even for household consumption. A few years ago we still consumed salt contaminated water. Ff you are not used to it you will get sick, or you will feel uncomfortable. Now, we have community water reserves, but only for household needs because the volume is limited.

He explains that they need to examine the weather carefully to determine when to start planting. If you are too late, you will not harvest anything. Otherwise, the seed would get too dry or be eaten by birds. He continued that rats, birds, monkeys and wild boars were frequent unwanted visitors to his farm. He sets up a night watch to keep the harvest from wild animals as soon as the planting season starts. He explains that they cannot grow or consume diverse food plants like other villages.

"Our primary food here is corn and rice. I will plant only those two kinds of crops because we don't have additional resources, time and energy to grow others. We only want to plant the food that we already know are useful because we need to prioritize because of the scarcity. Some of the fellow farmers thought that it was easier and better if we generate money to buy food from outside because too hard to farm here. He said that you need a bunch of fortitude

23Andreas 27-11-2016

57

and faith to live and survive here. Some farmer families decide to become a migrant worker and never come back for many reasons.”24

I asked about the community social security among members that is usually helpful in unfortunate situations. Andreas answered that every member of the community is facing the same problem, so they cannot count on others' help because they are also trying to provide for their family. I asked about the viability of the tradition of working together in Kawalelo. He answered that people tend to work individually now. They prefer fishing or working on their land than participating in the public communal work or helping others farm. He earns about Rp 100.000-200.000 per day from fishing. If he does community work, he will lose the potential income, even though the community work might have advantages for their livelihood. Now, fewer people wants to join groups or work in groups if there's no money or profit involved.

He expresses that some programs succeed because there are direct money incentives. He tells me about a cow introduction program started by the government that til today. The main driving objective of that program was quick cash. In the beginning, farmers were asked by the government to form groups and about 40 people joined the groups. These groups received a herd of 94 cows, fences and some initial cash for growing grass. Farmers wanted to join because they would receive money incentives for building the fence and developing the grassland. The program continues because they can easily get money from the sale of livestock.

I asked if cash and money are the motivation behind following the local food movement by NGO. He explained that the program also involving money incentives at the beginning. Farmers received an initial sum for clearing the land and planting sorghum. If they could open more land then they got more money. The NGO also promised to buy 40% of the total yield from their land. Farmers thought it was a good deal and with a little trick they could get more cash. He explains that the other reason was the involvement of the church in this program.

YCAP created a consortium with Yaspensel to run the program, while the church via Yaspensel has been taking care of the people there for a long time. They have been operating here for a long period, giving charity and opening up the road there. Andreas said that the church began to engage with the community in 1992.

"I remember there was a program from Yaspensel that mobilized people to work on a road project and in exchange they would pay for food. The road was as essential infrastructure, that's why people here feel grateful to the church and follow their commands ever since".

He continues that at the beginning of the program, the primary motivation were cash incentives. As time went by, the farmers realized the advantages of this program. They understand that local varieties can help them get food, feed and commodities to sell. He explains that one of the benefits he receives from the program is that he longer needs to buy feed for his pig because he has sorghum. Before, he needed to buy cassava and banana plants from the market to feed his pig.

24Andreas 27-11-2016

58

FIGURE 13 KAWALELO'S SETTLEMENT

Agatha Lerabelang (36) is a woman farmer and the mother of two daughters and a son. Agatha and her husband provide for their family by growing food, tamarind cash crops, raising livestock, and working on other farmers' land. She said that her family gets their income purely from agriculture while most others get their cash from fishing. She and her husband are paid by another farmer to open plots of land. She gets Rp 350.000-700.000 per plot, depending on the area, only for opening the land. There are different tariffs for every step in the farming such as planting, weed removing, and harvesting. She tells me that this season her family received five work orders. She and her husband substitute each other on their farm. She said that she now manages her family land to provide food for the family while her husband works on another farmer's land to get money. Sometimes he also helps her on the family land, and she sometimes works on another farmer's land.25

She is proud that this year only her family and the chief of the village had a good harvest. The rest of the community faced crop failure. She was the first farmer who accepted the NGO's local food program while others farmers still doubted its advantages. She said farmers have a 'wait and see' attitude when new things, like the NGO food diversification program, are introduced to them. They prefer to follow something that has been proven. In this case, the main reason why her fellow farmers supported the NGO program was the initial money incentive. She also said that the farmers do not prefer to work in groups, because they were suspicious of free riding attitudes and the portions of harvest as shared among members. Farmers also admitted that working in groups and associated meetings took away from their productive time when they could be generating cash.

She argued that the government agricultural subsidy has mostly failed in Kawalelo. Farmer groups who received the subsidies never actually used the fertilizers, leaving them piled up in their houses, untouched since delivery. She said that government agricultural department was useless because they failed to recognize the needs of the farmer. She said that one day her husband was angry at the agricultural extension agent because they never came to the field for their work; they simply sent fertilizer and seeds without knowing who needed them. She regrets that the government spends so much money on agricultural subsidies without proper implementation. She joked that it

25Agatha Lerabelang, 27-11-2016

59 would be better if the government distributed those items to them so farmers would directly feel the advantages of that money.26

Kawalelo and its farmers represent an area with limited resources and total marginalization. They cannot generate enough income from farming and growing food because of the unforgiving environment. The lack infrastructure, especially roads, making them unable to connect with the market. The lack of connectivity, education and information make them less aware of available choices. These multiple challenges make any communal resource arrangements less preferable. Society's ability to provide social security to the villagers is reduced. To survive, they must put in more individual effort to fulfill their needs. They have not much choice beyond following the logic of the market. Every villager was competing with each other to survive. They put aside adat and conservative social structures and get more and more involved in a money-driven society. The notion of the moral economy does not work here. Their desperation makes them opportunistic. They will accept every austerity, development program and influence from outside as long as they can have a calculable short term financial advantage.

PAJINIAN (THE RESISTANCE) Pajinian is located 15 km from Larantuka in West Adonara district, Adonara island. It takes about 15 minutes by boat to cross the Flores sea from Larantuka, then another 15 minutes by motorcycle taxi from Adonara harbor to Pajinian village. With 24-hour electricity service, the village is located next to the trans-Adonara road, giving easy access from the harbor to the village. They have a proper school, public health services and are close to the district capital of West Adonara. They have the choice to sell and buy goods from the district capital or regency capital, with both prominent marketplaces being nearby. The flow of goods and people to and from this village are considerably high. Villagers bring most of the sellable harvests to the market and use the cash to buy or trade for other things. They also buy from other villagers and sell things at a kiosk in the pasar baru (new market) in Larantuka. There are about 163 households in this area, with 43 of them classified as poor (BPS, 2015).

Pajinian was formed in 1979 under the local transmigration and new style village programs by the government. At that time, the Pajinian were living on hillside ancestral land in the southern part of the current village. The new order regime government forced them to move from the old settlement to a new one closer to the road. The government built a new settlement within the reach of roads, schools and other infrastructure. Villagers were also provided with housing and two hectares of farming land. In exchange, villagers had to follow the government law and order in the new settlement. In the new place, customary land tenure was no longer applied. They had to follow the state land law which respected individual ownership, taxation and possibility of land sales.

26Agatha Lerabelang, 27-11-2016

60

FIGURE 14 PAJINIAN'S TYPICAL LIVELIHOOD

The Pajinian faced dramatic livelihood changes in the new place. They were no longer able to apply traditional semi-swidden agriculture due to limited land. Before, they had enough land to switch from one plot to another to allow for natural regeneration. In the new settlement, they produce less food because they still apply swidden farming. They are able to acquire ancestral land for agriculture, but it would mean a longer travel time in the harsh terrain without proper roads. This forces them to stay and comply with the conditions in the new place. The government is also preparing an income generation program for the farmers by introducing cashew nut plantation, targeting areas that are less fertile or abandoned. Villagers end up planting in the land parcels near their settlement, so it is easier for government officials to control and harvest. Cashew nut started to gain popularity among farmers, because it was heavily promoted by the government as a cash generating tree. Farmers started to expand the cashew nut plantations, leaving little space to grow food crops, despite never planting cashew before. They did not know that the cashew requires five years of waiting time before it can be harvested. During this time, farmers struggle with a tiny piece of land to grow food. They have new roads and public services but they cannot grow enough food to eat, so they must buy from the kiosk or go to Larantuka. The needs of cash increased and farmers had never experienced a situation like this before.

Bapak Kia (51) is a farmer in Pajinian. He is a native Adonaranese. He lives with his wife and two kids. He gets cash from selling cashew nuts, coconut and mashed corn. Mashed corn is a traditional food, made from corn that has been mashed between two flat stones. His wife makes the mashed corn to sell in the market in the city. He also sells some other products like bananas and cassava in the city. They use the cash to buy rice from the kiosk. He gets most of his food from the market and only a bit from the farm. The rice from the kiosk is cooked with the homegrown corn. They sell everything that grows in their farmland and keep a small amount as seeds for the next planting season and home consumption. He was a migrant worker for almost 1.5 years in Malaysia, but came back raising enough money to pay off debts and renovate his house. He admitted that he received agricultural subsidies from the government but never used the seed or fertilizer. He also does not want to follow advice from the NGO about planting local sorghum, because of limited land and a lack of certainty about the market. His land is fully cultivated with cashew, rice and corn.

61

He does not have enough land to experiment with new crops. He is afraid his income will be affected if he reduces his amount of corn. I asked him what he thought of farmer groups. He answered that farmer groups were good but he preferred to work individually because no one can order or control him. If he joins a farmer group, he needs to follow the rules. He said, "Without farmer groups, I can work anytime I want.”27 He agrees that groups have the advantages of lesser workloads, and faster and easier access to subsidies. He argues that with or without farmer groups, there are no significant changes in his harvest. He explains about the regular rodent infestations on the island, recalling that this year his corn farm was severely damaged by rats. Fortunately, he still had cash from the cashew harvest. He explains that rodent infestations are the most devastating. Every five to ten years, there will always be a time when food shortages strikes. Farmers here usually hold rituals to get rid of the famine.

I asked him why he decided to become a migrant worker. He answered that he was in a hard situation. He needed to get money for his family at that time, so he went to Malaysia. He explained that sometimes if farmers faced total harvest failure or there was an urgent need for cash, they don't have many options except migrant work. The limited land and increasing cash needs may make a Pajinian farmer trapped in debt and landlessness, pushing them to become a migrant worker. He explained that migrant work is a gamble. If you got a good job and a kind boss, you could earn a fortune. If not, you will just become more indebted, suffer or become a hostage in a foreign land.

Nober (29) is a second generation Pajinian and the father of a newborn baby. He lives in a bamboo house in the settlement. He was working as hand tractor operator and sometimes helping on another farmer's land. Although he has the motivation to farm, he has no land except for his house. The family land was sold to pay for his father and brother's initial costs to be migrant workers in Malaysia. He told me that people here commonly took a loan to pay the tickets and everything else to find work outside Flores. The loan has a high interest rates and uses land as collateral. If he took a one million rupiah loan it would be two million next year and would double each year until it was paid off or the land was taken by the debtor.

“It was a bitter reality. My father was one of the people who failed to get a fortune abroad. He could not pay his debt and so the land was confiscated. Now, I don't have land. I do everything to provide for my family, asking for jobs from other farmers. I operate the farmer groups and they pay the rent and also my labor. I try to find employment several times outside Flores Timur. I've been in Bali, Jakarta and maybe at the end of the month if the tractor jobs are not going well I'll go to Yogyakarta to find other employment. If I can get enough money, I'll buy back my family land to start my farm, and I want to buy a small boat to fish. Here, life is not easy because there are no jobs and limited land.”28

These farmers were forced to find other strategies to generate cash. They became traders, unskilled workers and the least preferred choice of migrant workers. A few villagers reported selling part of their land to fulfill their increasing needs. By the time the cashew nut started to generate yield, the situation was a little bit better. They had cash, but other unintended effects of modernization also require cash. They want to have better houses, go to school and conduct decent funeral ceremonies – all of which requires more money. Some farmer succeed in accessing some of

27Bapak Kia 09-12-2015 28Nober 9-12-2015

62 the abandoned ancestral lands and grow lower maintenance plants such as candlenut and coffee, while others try to fish. However, most of the villagers were trapped in the same vicious cycle. Caught in debt, they ended up mortgaging the land and becoming a migrant worker. The story above shows the unintended effect of a government program to the livelihoods of people by triggering de- peasantization and poverty. These narratives mirror those recounted by Tania Li Murray in the fourth chapter of her book 'The Will To Improve', about structural poverty and dispossession because of a development project carried out by the government (Li, 2007).

The problem of Pajinian is access to arable land. They have limited room for maneuver to experiment with new and better livelihood strategies and crops while keeping a stable cash flow. Even though they could use abundant ancestral land, they need to overcome huge infrastructural challenges that are beyond their capabilities. They are forced to follow the market economy and instruments of modernity.

The Pajinian have lost their moral economy and are forced to be a more individualist society. It is not caused by marginalization or less governance. On the contrary, it was the effect of an excessive desire to govern, which is obviously reflected in infrastructure and state law. Thus, they tend to be cautious of any form of intervention from the outside, whether from the state or other institutions like NGOs. They become skeptical, cautious and stubborn to any changes recommended to them. This cautious character has made every agricultural development project fail, causing some NGOs to give up working in this area.

SERINUHO (THE CONSERVATIVE) Serinuho village is located 54 km from Larantuka in Titihena sub-district. The village faces the beautiful north coast of Flores Timur and Leroboleng volcano in the background. The access road is severely damaged. Electricity service is only 12 hours a day. Despite the lack of proper infrastructure, Serinohu has been blessed with an abundant source of water and a small river stream. The forest and cashew plantation surround this village. The area is vulnerable to natural disasters. According to a local informant, earthquakes and tsunamis have swollen the village nearby and damaged the main road to this area.29 It is the greenest village across four other villages. Serinuho only has an elementary school. If villagers want to continue their education, they need to go Larantuka or the sub-district capital 10 km away from the village. There are about 175 households, and 29 households were classified as poor (BPS, 2015).

Farmers depend on growing food crops, cash crops and vegetable production. The problem faced by farmers here is the limited use of abundant land due to traditional rituals of land clearing. They cannot use the land before they conduct a series of lavish rituals that force the farmer to spend cash. The rituals involve all families and clans in the village, and all expenses must be covered by the farmer's family or the groups who open the land. In the past, all the clans would open the land so they could cover each other's expenses. Now only a few clans start farming because they do not want to cover the initial ritual. Farmers manage individual or family owned land for cash crops. This type of land only needs one ritual in the beginning and most last at least 10-15 years. The problem occurs when they want to open a field for food crops. Lavish rituals will require from the farmer a serious amount of cash in every planting season. The farmer also lose trust in each other due to clan

29Interview Ferry and Kartini 17-12-2015

63 conflicts and seizure of power between the clans. Farmers choose to borrow land in the neighboring village or they simply depend on individual cash crops.

Ferry (36) and Kartini (32) are a farmer couple. They grow vegetables and sell and process cashew nut. Before they came back to settle in the village, both of them worked in a hotel. Ferry was a bellboy while his wife was a hospitality helper. They met and in love in the same tourism high school in Maumere. After few years of studying and working in Maumere, Ferry and his wife decided to back to their village. They built a house and set up some farm land where they manage family cash crops, coconut, cashew and candle nut. They brought the work ethic of the capital city to the village. Ferry is outspoken and open minded, and he has more education and experience than other fellow farmers. He was rapidly appointed to an important position in the village not only because of his clan but also his knowledge. He has been appointed as secretary of village for the last few years. He decided to resign due to clan conflict. Ferry and Kartini became frontrunners in the new ideas and opportunities to increase the conditions of their livelihoods.

FIGURE 15 ABANDONED LAND, USED LAND AND ABANDONED TRACTOR IN SERINUHO

Ferry said to me that his village has all the resources to generate a decent income from farming. They have water all year around and fertile volcanic soil. The only thing which limits them are adat rituals. It prohibits farmers from opening communal land without a decent ceremony involving all clans in the village. The farmer's family or clan must hold a big ceremony at least three times, which requires a lot of money to provide food for the clan representatives and villagers. He argued that the harvest from the communal land farm could not cover the expenses of the rituals. That is why he prefers to borrow land in the other village. Other farmers simply limit their farming activity rather than acquire land in the next village because they consider it risky and hard work.

Farmers can borrow free land from land owners in the other village. Landowners there can give permission to farmers from Serinuho as long as the land is not being used by the landowners. They can still produce enough food and sellable commodities from the borrowed land but this creates uncertainty for farmers because they don't know when the owner would want to use their land. They cannot guarantee that they will be able to use the same land next year so they are not

64 connected to the farm to treat it properly. Serinuho farmers have spirit and great potential, but they are inhibited by adat and clan conflict. Farmers are open to any programs addressing their livelihood, whether from the government or NGO. There were some NGOs working there, like YPPS, IDEP and a Swiss contact. YPPS, together with IDEP, was working on sustainable farming, while the Swiss contact was working on cashew processing and the supply chain. They had a good start, but when the facilitation period ended, the projects started to fall apart. We found the pilot plan permaculture plots abandoned by the farmer groups. Only a few individual farmers were working on the farming plot.30 The cashew processing program became disastrous after the program ended as it caused a conflict among members of farmer groups about who had the right to use the processing tools. Jealousy and resource contestation were easily sparked among farmers' clans. YCAP is working in this area to reintroduce sorghum and local food. Kartini is participating in this program. She says, "YCAP has a different approach. They don't directly give physical infrastructure like other NGOs. They give training and seeds and hope farmers will plant the sorghum voluntarily."31 Furthermore, she explains that the different approach created less jealousy among farmers because less money or physical infrastructure was involved. Kartini and a few women farmers formed a group to open the first sorghum field. In the first harvest, her fellow friend complained about the limited market and the NGO giving a different point of view from the market. The NGO also gave a different strategy to sell sorghum, by processing it into various products.

"I also start to doubt it but then Mama Tata give me some advice and recipe to process sorghum. she advised me to process and consume sorghum in a different form. Then, I try to make a cake from sorghum. I try to give the fellow farmers examples of the usefulness of sorghum. I started to share some recipes among women here and create tasty food from sorghum."

Ferry explains that the government often initiates programs there by giving machinery, tractors, seeds and fertilizers, but rarely technical assistance. They simply drop off machines and other inputs of production in the village office. He told me that this happened just few days ago. He explains that the government program in the form of machinery was disastrous rather than useful because it creates jealousy and suspicion. The government rarely announces the program and only a few people now about the program. Sometimes a villager does not feel they enjoy any advantages, and thus accuses the chief village of abusing power for their personal interest. This leads to bigger conflict involving clans and family groups. This type of program makes the position of the chief of village a tantalizing one. Every clan and kampung compete to win the chief village election. This competition and local politics often divide the village into several factions that are vulnerable to physical conflict.

IV.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF FARMER EVERYDAY POLITICS Some of the stories above show the subtle responses toward the actors that influence farmers. Kerkvliet (2009) categorizes everyday politics into four: support, compliance, modification and resistance. I argued that those four categories have never been found in the pure form, being dynamic rather than fixed entities. I will not categorize more, but summarise a little of the character

30ferry and kartini, 17-12-2015 31ferry and kartini, 17-12-2015

65 of dynamic everyday politics toward food provisioning in Flores Timur. The farmers' responses to various actors can be seen below in the map of engagement.

FIGURE 16 FARMER ENGAGEMENT MAP

In the map above, we can see that several actors influence the farmer. Adat-farmer relations are represented by the way of life and locality in the four villages and the overall dynamic of Flores Timur. The relation between these actors are 'support' and 'compliance'. Farmers have preserved adat for as long as they can. Adat is not only present as rituals per se but is also part of an effort to guarantee a good harvest. In Ratulodong, farmers start their planting season with rituals. They believe that adat brings rain and keeps away famine. They plant the seeds after rituals even though there is no rain yet. They believe that if the elders start the rituals, it guarantees that the rain will fall soon. The adat-farmer relation may vary among villages. In Kawalelo, farming rituals are not strictly followed by the farmer. Kawalelo farmers only hold rituals on special occasions, for example during severe drought or famine. Kawalelo adopts customary land arrangements but in daily life, they are getting more individualist. For example, they do not prefer working together in the traditional farming groups. In Serinuho, adat rituals have become a hindrance to farmer activities. Farmers comply with adat and follow it strictly. They cope with adat by borrowing land in the less strict neighboring villages to expand their farm. In Pajinian, farmers also show support and compliance, but the rituals are less strict.

The church-farmer relationship is mostly symbolized by the faith, Sunday mass, priests, charity and figures or statues of Jesus on the wall. Most of the farmers are religious. They go to church on Sunday and follow the celebrations. The priests are among the most honorable people in the village. Religion is the lifeline to people, giving them hope in their uncertain environment. The Catholicism in Flores Timur is slightly different as it has been acculturated with adat. They believe in Jesus but follow local belief rituals at the same time. The Catholic Church has existed before the

66

Indonesian republic was born. The church elite here has almost the same power as adat leaders or government officials. People most likely obey their words and embrace them. There are two reasons identified for the priest's power among people: faith and charity. Farmers obey maybe because of faith but also the opportunity to get charity from the church. There is a polite joke in the community that priests are known as "sakramen or sak semen" meaning, a sacrament or a sack of cement.

Almost all farmers engage in the modern market economy, from the smallest aspects such as trading and money, to setting up businesses and small investments. They try to comply with the market. They have also modified the term 'market' into 'hybrid trading'. Actual practice in the market involves not only cash but also barter trade. Farmers commonly trade their crops directly with other things. Barter trade significantly decreased due to more products being produced outside of Flores Timur, making it difficult to appraise its value. Since farmers and traders prefer cash to barter trade, the needs for cash increase. Communities become more dependent on money and cash for trading. The relentless promotion of modernity on television drags them into an even more monetized community than before. People with money and wealth are considered among the most respected men among society, or ata kabelen.

The contest is between the newly arisen actors in agriculture such as the NGO with a food sovereignty discourse and the state agricultural development regime. The growing debate on the theory level of these two approaches is apparent and creates a black and white dichotomy. In fact, in the everyday life of a farmer, these debates are a blur, intertwined and shady. Those for food sovereignty are utopians while the agricultural development regime is hegemonic. However, I shed light on these debates from farmers' responses.

FARMER RESPONSE CHARACTERIZATION (food movement (NGO) vs. state agricultural development)

In Kawalelo, support and modification emerged at the same time. They support the government program of agriculture but do not apply it in their everyday practice. They comply the NGO program but modify its implementation in their everyday lives. They undervalue traditional communal values and compromise everything to survive. I mark this characteristic as the opportunist.

The other characteristic is the idealist. They try to keep traditional values intact while strategizing ways to engage with other values. They support some outside values and actions that fit in with their way of life, while rejecting others they feel are inappropriate or unfavorable. The Ratulodong farmer with all their natural advantages and access fit in with this character. They support the movement while also being cautiously involved in the government program. They carefully filter what is useful and fits with their livelihoods and values.

The resistance characteristic arises when the groups of farmers or villagers reject all discourse from outside and never follow orders. The Pajinian fit mostly into this character. They follow neither the government program nor the NGO-led food movement. They live as they see fit, even if it directs them into worse consequences. They do not let other people dictate their life, even if it makes them fall into less fortunate choices such as debt or landlessness. They would keep and manage what they have now and survive, no matter what. They have been traumatized by broken promises in the past about prosperity and a better life.

67

The conservatives is exemplified by the Serinuho community. They try hard to keep adat even if the rituals create an unfavorable situation for farmers and villagers. They have the awareness and eagerness to support or comply with the new discourse from outside but their strong traditional values about land prevent further action.

RELATION BETWEEN ACCESS, RESOURCE AND RESPONSE OF THE FARMER There some important points that make each village differ from one another: accessibility and proximity, education status, infrastructure, water availability and dynamic livelihood strategy. I recap all the differences and similarities below in Table 1. I put all the contexts and categorize their responses to the conservative power, food movement and government agricultural program. This table is for giving a plausible connection between context differences and also the diversity of farmer responses. They consist of roughly the same ethnicity, language groups and social structure, yet the response is diverse.

Village Characteristic Ratulodong Kawalelo Pajinian Srinuho Differences Access Public transport, Motorcycle, rental Boat, motorcycle Rental car, motorcycle, rental car motorcycle taxi car Distance from capital 28 km 25 km 15 km 54 km Infrastructure School, medium Elementary School, Elementary Elementary school, clinic, asphalt road small clinic, dirt road school, small clinic, small clinic, heavily wood boat, ferry, damage asphalt road road Water availability Available all year Limited, well, Individual well, and Abundant, available around, Distributed water communal well, all year around community from outside, scarce average availability managed distribution Possible natural Cash crops, forest Fisheries, livestock, Cash crops, Cash crops, usable Resource product, limited cash crops fisheries, vegetable fisheries, forest vegetable, product, vegetable, fruit Poverty rate (BPS, 12.3 % 13.6 % 26.3 % 16.5 % 2015) Livelihood strategy Cash crops farmer, Cash crops farmer Cash crops farmer Cash crops farmer, lumber, forager, Fisherman, trader, Fisherman, trader, vegetable farmer, vegetable farmer, livestock farmer, vegetable farmer, fisherman, migrant unskilled labor, trader, migrant migrant worker, worker, unskilled migrant worker worker unskilled labor labor Land arrangement communal land, Communal land State law Communal land abundant (propertied land) and communal land Semi communal land challenge The information Water and Access Limited Land Adat and tradition,

68

and choice clans conflict The farmer response support, Support, compliance Support, Modification Adat compliance compliance Resistance The farmer response Support, Support, compliance Support, Support, Church compliance compliance compliance The farmer response Compliance and Compliance and Compliance and Compliance nad Market modification modfification modification modification The farmer response modification, compliance modification, Compliance, to state agricultural resistance modification, resistance modification program The farmer response Support, Compliance, Compliance Support, to local food Compliance modification resistance compliance movement Similarities Local power holder Adat, state, church shape the power dynamic in four villages, in all the villages I found some level of discontent with local power. Ethnicity and They all use the same local language, complementary to Bahasa language Social structure All villages are divided into clans, landlords and commoners, but in daily practice there are no visible differences or privilege Farming technique All the farming techniques here refer to small-scale traditional family subsistence farming. Capitalism and All villages have incorporated and are influenced by the capitalist system and global market market through different instruments such as money, market economy, development program, media, and education.

TABLE 1 VILLAGE COMPARISON`

The differences among these villages and their farmers are obvious. Some of the interesting similarities I found in the four villages is that all of them still maintain small scale, traditional family subsistence farming methods. They manage the land according to the annual family needs of food and cash. They produce food and cash crop commodities at a small scale level. There is no big industrial agriculture in Flores Timur. There is no visible action against government agricultural programs, but in daily practice the farmers show discontent through subtle and mundane actions. The adat, state and church combination shape the dynamic of power in these four villages. There are differences in the mode and level of engagement but overall they are strongly related to these three power holders. The differences in local setting, history, experience of the development process, and personal experiences have created different farmer responses toward a growing discourse.

They always try to express their discontent and dissatisfaction toward accusations from outside. The farmers prove that they can survive and continuously find middle ground by orchestrating power around them to work towards their intention. Farmers do not take visible, formal political action or open confrontation; rather, they use their land and livelihoods as a living process of struggle. The process itself is hidden but shows effective influence on the bigger structure.

After examining stories and categorizing their responses and contexts, I found several points that cause farmers in different villages to respond differently to the power contest and food discourse. I argue that the more limited the resources and the access, the more likely the farmer is to

69 show compliance and an opportunist attitude. They start to show resistance towards anything beyond their reach if they do not have any surpluses or access to resources. Kawalelo farmers facing water, food and cash scarcity due to climate and limited access illustrate this opportunist symptom. When the situation gets worse, such as losing land, people show a resistance attitude. Pajinians show this attitude of resistance.

Kawalelo's communal land arrangement makes the land abundant and accessible to everyone. Kawalelo's customary land is a hurdle for land commoditization. On the other hand, Pajinian no longer uses customary land arrangements due to transmigration. They adopt the state land, which opens the opportunity to land selling. If the ability to retain the land is low, for example because of poverty and increasing cash needs, the Pajinian people start to sell land. Decreasing land ownership have worsened the livelihoods of Pajinian. They become traumatized and start a defense and resistance mechanism to protect their limited resources.

Pajinian, located in the Adonara, has a long history of clan conflicts. Land disputes are one of the primary triggers of conflict. The descendants of warring clans usually mark their territory carefully; Pajinians cannot borrow or use land outside of their territory. This condition worsened the land scarcity among the Pajinian. The situation is slightly different in another village like Serinuho. Their ability to manage the land was limited due to the lavish and complicated adat rituals, but they can borrow or rent abandoned land in the neighboring village without any consequences. The Pajinian people show the effect of a high poverty rate, as they are the poorest among the four villages.

Ratulodong farmers show the opposite narration. I argue that the more abundant the resources and access, the more the people are accepting of an alternative discourse and the more articulation there is in their livelihoods. Ratulodong has enough water and land resources and access, so they can generate enough food and cash. These conditions support the growing of critical ideas towards the choice of livelihoods. They have the opportunity to experiment with new techniques and crop varieties because their needs have been relatively secure. They show the "middle peasant" attitude. Their relatively successful development strategy is to adapt their livelihood to the current discourse, articulating the market economy while conserving their traditional way of life.

70

V. THE CONTEST OF ALTERNATIVENESS

V.1 DEFINING FOOD SOVEREIGNTY VERSUS FOOD SECURITY IN FLORES TIMUR In this chapter, I define food sovereignty and the food security discourse in the Flores Timur context. The local food movement led by the NGO consortium (Yaspensel and YCAP) represent the food sovereignty discourse in Flores Timur. The NGO consortium is contesting the dominant hegemonic agriculture development that is backed by the government and the market. The NGO has been conducting several activities namely local seed dissemination, promotion of sustainable agricultural practices, documentation of local farming techniques, farmer group consolidation, national and local level stakeholder engagement and advocacy. Holt Giménez's (2010) The Food Regime—Food Movement Matrix helps describe the dominant trends in the food system according to the politics, production models, tendencies, issues and approaches.

TABLE 2 MATRIX FOOD MOVEMENT-CORPORATE FOOD REGIME

71

From the matrix above, the NGO consortium can be categorized as a food movement by highlighting their orientation, model and approach to the food crisis. I doubt that the rigid categorization between radical and progressive in the table can represent the complex maneuvers in the everyday operation of the NGO consortium. Hence, further classification of the food movement is irrelevant in practice. For example, the NGO consortium works on agro-ecologically produced local food to increase farmer and consumer choice, hence improving their bargaining position over the agro-food corporations. I take the categorization between corporate food regime and food movement, but I reject any further classification of the food movement. I believe that one organization can be part of a food sovereignty project as long as the organization or the people show an opposing attitude, action and strategy towards the corporate food regime.

FOOD SOVEREIGNTY I argue that the NGO consortium in Flores Timur is part of a food sovereignty project. According to the Nyeleni Conference (2007):

"Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their food and agriculture systems. It puts those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations. It defends the interests and inclusion of the next generation. It offers a strategy to resist and dismantle the current corporate trade and food regime, and directions for food, farming, pastoral and fisheries systems determined by local producers. Food sovereignty priorities local and national economies and markets and empowers peasant and family farmer-driven agriculture, artisanal fishing, pastoralist-led grazing, and food production, distribution, and consumption based on environmental, social and economic sustainability. Food sovereignty promotes transparent trade that guarantees just income to all peoples and the rights of consumers to control their food and nutrition. It ensures that the rights to use and manage our lands, territories, waters, seeds, livestock and biodiversity are in the hands of those of us who produce food. Food sovereignty implies new social relations free of oppression and inequality between men and women, peoples, racial groups, social classes and generations."

The food sovereignty project led by the NGO consortium fights against the accumulative and oppressive attitude of the corporate-state regime toward farmers and local food diversity. The state tends to be facilitator and collaborator of the very structures and policies that the food sovereignty movement seeks to dismantle (Edelman 2013). The NGO consortium's primary focus is re- introducing local varieties such as sorghum, along with other local varieties of corn and dryland rice. They give the farmer confidence with their seed and make them more acceptable and respectable. The NGO consortium minimizes the vulnerability of farmers exposed to globalization and the neoliberal agenda. Food sovereignty gives a visible sign of whose side is worthy of being picked.

Food sovereignty is an ongoing process, is always open to articulation and is free from oppressive framing. In the case of Pajinian, where farmers have limited land, the NGO does not try to force their vision of local food diversity. The NGO put their feet in the shoes of the farmer. There is no indication of forced inclusion even though the NGO program is not well perceived. The NGO tries as hard as possible to give choice to the farmer, but the decision must be carried out voluntarily by the

72 farmer. Food sovereignty must continuously defend the interests of the most affected actors. The radical point of view must be put in the right condition and depend on the actors engaging with it. If the NGO faces the oppressive corporate state policy, they must be more radical. Otherwise, they will apply a strategy of compromise and a more gradual transformation. The purpose of food sovereignty is to bring about a democratization of the food system. Therefore, the organization must be consciously aware of this concept. They must give the farmer more room for articulation and the choice of livelihood. The food sovereignty project believes in the farmer's capability and knowledge, recognizing them as active political actors. Any NGO or institution that takes this notion as a core value must give farmers more trust and facilitate their voice, rather than claim their position and exercise the notion of 'trusteeship.'

FOOD SECURITY In Table 2 above we can see that food security discourse is part of the corporate food regime. The position of food security is oppositional to the food sovereignty discourse Jarosz (2014) concisely explains food security:

Food security affirmed ‘the right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food, consistent with the right to adequate food and the fundamental right of everyone to be free from hunger’ (FAO,1996a, 1996b) cited in The Declaration identifies the root cause of world hunger as poverty. Poor people are unable to purchase the food they need as global supply and demand become unstable and as increasing world population growth places additional stress on natural resources. Trade is identified as a key element in food security while the mobilization of technology and financial resources to increase production and food aid through sustainable development interventions are identified as policy responses in this document. The sovereign right of nations to enact policies to promote food security is recognized and affirmed. But how national sovereignty is eroded through structural adjustment conditions or the rulings of the WTO, which privileges neoliberal trade relations over national initiatives to preserve local and regional food self-sufficiency is not addressed. Publications on food security emphasize the importance of good governance at the level of multilateral international institutions and at the national level in ensuring food security. Good governance is premised upon increasing the supply and accessibility of food through purchase on the global market or increasing local production triggered by investments in productivity agriculture at the international and national levels (FAO, 2012; Paarlberg, 2002).

If we reflect on this food security definition in the context of Flores Timur, we can see that there are several food security projects such as a state-backed agricultural development program, rice austerity for the poor program and the National Logistic Agency (BULOG). The state program on agriculture in Flores Timur is a repetition of the same program with a different name. The essence of the government program is the distribution of hybrid seed, chemical fertilizers and agricultural machinery. In 2015, the government launched a program called UPSUS PAJALE (meaning, “Special Effort for Rice, Corn and Soy). The state provides subsidies for farmers if they want to plant those commodities with techniques and supervision from the government. This program seems to be useless for farmers in Flores Timur, an area with unique terrain, climate, and farming habits. For example, the seed given to farmers there are incompatible with the land and are less preferable due to taste and limited storage capacity under the traditional supply chain. As for the state-provided

73 agriculture machinery such as hand tractors and combine harvesters, these could not be optimally used by most of the farmers because their farms are located far away in the jungle or on the hillside. The corporate food regime as represented by government policy is intended for food enterprises rather than small scale farmers. The state frames the entire policy as a way to secure the food supply to keep stable prices. In the name of food, the state guarantees the accessibility and availability of food by using every law and instrument available. The state emphasizes trading instruments such as the national logistic agency and the regulated import of some commodities. The state perceives food as a commodity and the farmer as part of the production process itself. Thus, interventions to farmers are only in the form of input subsidies.

Farmers as people, livelihoods and ways of life have been undermined. Government intervention in agriculture as simply an economic activity means less focus on farmers as citizens and people. Their knowledge and voice are hardly heard; their political initiatives are considered worthless and sometimes even a threat. The state wants obedient farmers: those who follow blindly government policy on agriculture and produce more food for national interest. The farmer's critical voice is utterly silenced. The national interest conflicts in some ways with the farmer's livelihood choices. The national interest is, to some extent, infiltrated by elite and corporation interests. Schiavoni (2014) writes about food and political sovereignty in Venezuela, which fits with the Indonesian context post-Suharto regime:

"Although certain transformations have been made, the underlying structure of the state remains bourgeois in character. As long as that remains the case, ‘We have to be clear that constituted power (of the state), and constituent power (of the people) are going to be in permanent conflict with one another."

The state forced consent to the choice of production. The state supports modern industrial- minded agriculture and frames the local agriculture system as being outdated or backward. The state agriculture policy undermines the existence of small subsistence farmers. Thus they are neglected. One of the farmers in Pajinian, Nober (29), told me that hand tractors could only be used in the plains land which is very limited. As most of his land is on a slope near the hill, it was not possible to work with it. He continues that the tractor needs fuel and maintenance which means more cash. It is useless for a subsistence farmer.32 The combine harvester also only can be used in wetland paddy farming, which covers less than 1% of all farming land. These types of subsidy only work for a few farmers but are useless for the larger part of the farmer population. The budget for an agricultural subsidy is also only advantageous for the hybrid seed producer, fertilizer and agriculture machinery, which are mainly corporations. The corporation and corrupt system work together toward a hegemonic mechanism that eternalizes a symbiotic accumulation. Corporations get the capital, and the corrupt state gets power and farmer obedience. The food security strategy of the state is part of their way of upholding their responsibility as a nation-state. The problem is if this food security is hijacked by the interest of capital accumulation. Capital accumulation, through power accumulation, is the apparent enemy, not the state itself.

We must agree that part of the food security strategy works successfully in Indonesia, with the state controlling food imports tightly and using the special organization BULOG in every regency to intervene in the market. The state tries hard to make sure that people get accessible and

32Nober 5-12-2015

74 affordable food by controlling markets at particular times. Food security mainly works in the form of trade intervention but with less attention to the production side. Places like Pajinian and urban areas that depend heavily on the market would be worse off if the state did not regulate the food trade. The government also provides a program on rice austerity for the poor as part of guaranteeing access to food for the poor. The rice austerity program shows short term but not long term advantages. The rice austerity increases dependency by interrupting local food trade. The very cheap rice makes the locally produced food less preferable, hence decreasing farmer motivation to farm, and trigger de- peasantization. The affordable prices are good for the farmer as a consumer but not as a producer. More farmers start to abandon their land and participate in the labor market.

V.2 FOOD SECURITY AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY CONTESTATION A farmer in Flores Timur participates in the market with three interfaces. First, as a producer of commodities such as cashew nut, candle nut, coconut, candle nut and coffee. Second, as a consumer of products from outside such as imported rice, sugar, oil, flour, household appliances and toiletries. Third, the farmer participates in the labor market as a migrant worker. Although they are participating in the global market, they are committed to subsistence, the practice of agriculture and plant a limited number of local varieties. The contradictory position of farmers shows their ability to survive. They will keep subsistence agriculture alive as their culture, while following the trend of globalization and expansion of capitalistic development. The contestation between food security and food sovereignty in daily lives is subtle. Farmers in Flores Timur have been applying subsistence, low input agriculture and food production as their ancestral heritage. It is tightly correlated with their way of life and traditions. There were no food rallies or food riots during the process of introducing the food sovereignty project. Food sovereignty has been embedded in the farmer livelihood. In fact, there are no big industrial agriculture corporations in Flores Timur and hunger is less likely found in Flores Timur. A farmer in Flores Timur is engaging with the local and global commodity market. There are no interest overlaps whatsoever. They just tried diversifying their livelihoods to have the little comforts that modernization offers. Jarosz (2014) explains that the interrelation between food sovereignty and food security can explain the subtle contest in Flores Timur. She explains that food security and food sovereignty discourses are interrelated, not solely oppositional. Both discourses are dynamic, changing in relation to the wider political and cultural economies of food system dynamics across the scale. Both discourses have the same purpose which defend the human right to food, but they take different pathways. Edelman (2014) highlights some points about Jarosz:

"Jarosz’s most significant contribution is to dissect the ‘interrelatedness’ or ‘relationality’ of food security and food sovereignty discourses. She rightly points out that ‘food security’ is typically associated with technocratic, productivist approaches to development that emphasize quantitative measures of sufficiency, whether for individuals, households, or nations. ‘Food sovereignty,' on the other hand, is part of a profound critique of corporate industrial agriculture and its impact on small farmers and society and the environment more broadly, as well as a reassertion of the importance and potential of biodiverse agroecological production."

Jarosz argues that two discourses are equally important, referring to the cooptation of food sovereignty discourse into both international and national policy. For example, food sovereignty was mentioned in the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for

75

Development (IAASTD) report, published in 2009. IAASTD was the result of the cooperative efforts of 400 scientists, institutional and government policy makers (including the World Bank, FAO, and other multilateral global institutions) from 57 countries.

"The IAASTD also favors low input, small-scale sustainable agriculture, and defines food sovereignty as preferable to conventional, industrialized agriculture. In this document, food security and food sovereignty appear as equally important concepts. For example, the report claims that ‘agricultural knowledge, technology, and science has a major role to play in both moving towards food security and food sovereignty, and breaking the malnutrition–poor health–low productivity cycle’(IAASTD, 2009: 3). Both food security and food sovereignty are defined not as opposing discourses but as interrelated concepts that cover access, distribution, security, and equity (IAASTD, 2009: 10) cited in (Jarosz, 2014)

At the national level, she gives an example about the 'Belo Horizonte' municipal law in Brasil, which includes food sovereignty in the food security policy. She admitted that there was still substantial tensions between the two, namely between the legitimation of social and scientific knowledge and the differences between genetic modification of plants and animals and agroecology (Jarosz, 2014). She rejects the singularity of a food sovereignty definition due to the diversity of context, political economy, scales and the variations in cultural values and traditional foodways.

Regarding Jarosz's point of view about the interrelatedness between food sovereignty and food security, I agree on some points but reject some others. I agree that there is interrelatedness and plurality of food sovereignty definitions. I reject the simplification of the tension between the two discourses into mere technological and knowledge differences. Jarosz fails to give examples or further explanation about contesting state interests and farmers/consumers in the food sovereignty discourse. Interrelatedness fails to explain the reproduction of oppression at the farmer level, such as land grabbing and silencing of farmer political expression.

Jarosz's example of food sovereignty in the Belo Horizonte national food security policy is urban bias and undermines the diversity of practices in other areas. She admits the weakness of the conclusion. I shed light on the relation of food sovereignty to national policy and the implementation of policy at the farmer level in Indonesia. In 2012, Indonesia Government launched the new food law, UU no. 18/ 2012. Food sovereignty is included in this food law along with food security and food self- sufficiency.

Food Sovereignty is the right of the state and nation to independently establish Food policy that guarantees the right of Food for the people and grants the right to the society to establish a Food system that is appropriate to the potential local resources.

Food Self-Sufficiency is the ability of the state and nation to produce various Foods domestically that can guarantee the fulfillment of sufficient Food demand that reach individual levels using potential natural, human, social, economic resources and local wisdom with dignity.

Food Security is the fulfillment of Food for the state up to the individuals. That is reflected by a Food availability that is sufficient, both in quantity and quality, safe, diverse,

76

nutritious, prevalent and affordable as well as not conflicting with religion, belief and culture, to live healthy, active and productive lives in a sustainable manner.

(The Republic of Indonesia, 2012)

In this bill on food sovereignty, food self-sufficiency and food security are presented as being interrelated and complimentary. The implementation of this bill was never easier. The agricultural department under Joko Widodo's regime interpreted this law by launching the UPSUS PAJALE program (seed, fertilizer and agriculture machinery subsidies for rice, corn and soybean growers), food austerity and trade interventions. These three programs clearly indicate which discourses are dominant. Neoliberalism and capitalism have a dominant influence on state implementation. Local food development and all related programs are under-prioritized.33 The phenomena shows that hegemony works towards state apparatus as a political society and civil society, as Gramsci stated. The state and government are also affected by hegemony, hence they systematically defend the dominant idea in the name of citizen interest. Food sovereignty has been co-opted and twisted as political populism to silence the crowd and maintain the status quo. I found the obvious example of this phenomena in Flores Timur. Farmers in Pajinian remain marginalized, displaced and trapped in debt because of limited land. The food sovereignty project by the NGO consortium is always undermined by a state official. The government agricultural policy never fundamentally changes. Food sovereignty debate is going to the next level. Food sovereignty must expand beyond its comfort zone to avoid cooptation, populism trap and blunt action. Food sovereignty must always evolve to keep its 'alternative' character.

V.3 REVISITING FOOD SOVEREIGNTY Food sovereignty always comes as an evolving alternative. Growing debates about food sovereignty are not only fought in academia or activist forums but also in farmers' everyday lives on the farm and in daily conversation. For me, food sovereignty is the simple labeling of all efforts directed to fight the global hegemony of neoliberal and capitalism food development. Food sovereignty is a powerful idea and concept that can drive thousands of people to fight for it. Any attempt to abuse the food sovereignty agenda to serve certain interests will be noticeable. Any distortion and deviation of its goals would be visible.

The idea of food sovereignty became so powerful and appealed to many supporters because the concept as it is known today was conceived of, not in the halls of power, but out of struggle and resistance (Schiavoni, 2014). As the movement grows, challenges and contradictions continuously emerge, coming from the beneficiaries of the movement and the state. Food sovereignty implementation in Flores Timur triggered several responses from farmers. The response is subtle and embedded in everyday life but shows obvious tension. In Pajinian village, food sovereignty project is partly refused. They do not to follow advice from the NGO consortium to plant more diverse local crops, especially sorghum. However in practice, farmers grow local corn and local dry land rice as their main crops. The reason behind this is the multi-functionality of these crops and the limited land. If they grew corn and rice, farmers can easily choose between consuming the crops or selling it in the market. There is always market demand for those crops. When the price of local corn and rice is higher, they prefer to sell them in the market and buy the cheap rice provided by the government.

33 initial RS, national fsa

77

Otherwise, they consume the crops instead. Pajinian is the poorest area among the four villages where I conducted my study. One of the notable differences between Pajinian and the other villages is the type of land law. Pajinian has adopted state propertied land law while the three other villages (Kawalelo, Ratulodong, and Serinuho) still recognize customary land law.

From the Pajinian case, we see that the state's role both benefits and limits the food sovereignty effort. Shattuck, Schiavoni, & VanGelder (2015) present some contradictions:

(Bernstein, 2014; Patel, 2009) argued the different interests of small-scale farmers and different classes of rural landless workers cannot easily be reconciled between attempts by local activists to create food systems that are relatively autonomous from the whims of the global market and organized campaigns to change state policy and motivate institutional support for small farmers (Clark, 2013; Edelman, 2014; McKay, Nehring, & Walsh-Dilley, 2014); between proposals championing communal vs. individual rights (Agarwal, 2014; Claeys, 2014); and between a focus on making trade more fair and efforts to build autonomous local food systems (Bacon, 2015; Burnett & Murphy, 2014)

The tension is the nicely decorated daily operation of food sovereignty dissemination in Flores Timur. All contradictions are part of bigger theoretical and practical debates about who or what is 'sovereign' in food sovereignty. Edelman (2014) argues that different visions of food sovereignty, whether incompatible or complementary, have implicitly located the sovereign in different places, among them the nation-state, the region, the locality, or the people. The urgent task is how to think through and then face the political and policy challenges that the different understandings of food sovereignty imply (Edelman, 2014).

Some scholars suggest that multiple sovereignty in food sovereignty could be the key to entangle the contradictions that emerge (McMichael, 2008; Schiavoni, 2014; Iles & Montenegro de Wit, 2014;Shattuck et al., 2015). Multiple sovereignty arises by applying the perspective diversity in the movement practice rather than a single point perspective, which is possible in the context of globalization. McMichael (2008) as emphasized by Schiavoni (2014), argues that:

Corporate globalization generates the circumstances in which the modern form of sovereignty, while still relevant to counter-movement politics, is challenged by alternative forms of sovereignty. Transforming sovereignty into a "relative rather than an absolute authority" (Brecher et al., 2000:44) cited in (McMichael, 2005:591). He elaborates elsewhere that, ‘Instead of the single-point perspective associated with the modern state, these movements practice a multi-perspectival politics asserting the right to alternative forms of democratic organization and the securing of material well-being through multiple sovereignties based on cultural, environmental, and economic sustainability (McMichael, 2008:39)

In the Flores Timur context, multiple sovereignty may be apparent. We can find it in the differences of land law arrangements among villages. Kawalelo, Ratulodong and Serinuho have kept the traditional customary communal land law arrangements while Pajinian recognizes the state land law arrangement. The diversity of law in one regency shows the existence of multiple sovereignty. The single view of nation-state sovereignty is incompatible with the Indonesian and Flores Timur case. There are two probable answers to this phenomenon. The first is the probability that Indonesia

78 has failed to enforce nation-state sovereignty because of the lack of governance and resources. The second is that Indonesia is a country that builds upon a diversity of sovereignty. Any effort to respect and balance the nation-state sovereignty and other existing internal sovereignty will be useful for maintaining the national sovereignty of another country – hence the existence of the Republic in general. I follow the second thesis because of some evidence in Indonesia's constitution and the recent phenomenon about land law. The Indonesian national motto,"Bhineka tunggal Ika", means Diversity in Unity. Indonesia's founding fathers knew very well that diversity is the principal entity of Indonesia. This slogan was ignored under Soeharto's dictatorial regime, which thrived on uniformity rather than diversity. After the regime fell, the national slogan was restored as a fundamental value for governing Indonesia.

In 2001, the decentralization bill was passed. This law shows other evidence of recognizing the sovereignty of local government. The recent momentum of multiple sovereignty is related to the acknowledgment of custom land law and traditions by the national law. In 2012, several tribal communities sued the government to recognize tribal and traditional land law. The tribal and traditional communities won this case against the government in the constitutional court. The Constitutional Court of Indonesia released the verdict of no. 35/PUU-X/2012 on customary lands and forest. In this verdict the constitutional court agreed to recognize customary law in historically acclaimed tribal territory (AMAN, 2013). This example reflects some interesting insights about state sovereignty. State sovereignty becomes a 'malleable and “negotiable” power which particular movements, peoples, or communities can seize, create, oppose, or reshape as against the state, cities, corporations, and other sovereign actors’ (Iles & Montenegro de Wit, 2014 cited in Shattuck, Schiavoni, & VanGelder, 2015). Food sovereignty involves creating and sustaining these multiple sovereignties and turning sovereignty itself into a relational form and a process (Iles & Montenegro de Wit, 2014). This relational view of sovereignty is similar to the Gramsci idea of superstructure which consists of political society (state) and civil society as not being hermetically sealed spheres. They are different ways of approaching power in a given conjuncture (Anderson, 1976; Hoare & Nowell-Smith, 1971 cited in (Shattuck et al., 2015). The deconstruction and demystification of sovereignty brings a fresh angle to scrutinize the struggle of the food sovereignty project versus the corporate food regime. The hegemony of the corporate food regime only can be responded to by reasserting that the opposing idea (food sovereignty) also has hegemonic characteristics that are continuously evolving. Food sovereignty must have enough flexibility to engage multiple spaces, histories, everyday life, identity and history, institutions and civil society without losing meaning, integrity and its original essence. Schiavoni (2014) argues that asserting the notion of sovereignty in food sovereignty can be useful for stepping into the new arena of struggle, which is:

"To defend the very integrity and original essence of food sovereignty against possible cooptation, distortion, and weakening; to ensure that the marginalized are in fact in the driver’s seat; and to ensure that food sovereignty remains a living, breathing process and not a reified set of norms. The adoption of food sovereignty into state policy, then, calls for a redefining of the terms of engagement between state and society."

The shift relating to the scale in the food sovereignty movement is already underway. The question of local and global, small or big and top-down or bottom-up often appear in academic theory, but are somehow irrelevant with development on the ground. The distinction of the scale in ground implementation is still mostly vague and blurry. Iles & Montenegro de Wit(2014) argue that

79 relational scale emerged more strongly in the debate of food sovereignty, with respect to the relational view of sovereignty. She argued:

"We suggest that exploring the concept of relational scale could pluck food sovereignty efforts off the horns of this dilemma. By reminding us all that sovereignty is not an extraneously existing object but is a living process, it foregrounds the conscientious building and maintaining of relationships between people, institutions, technologies, ecosystems, and landscapes across multiple scales. It provokes more attention to the how of systemic change than to the what. To date, food sovereignty scholars and movements have tended to assume that scale is a matter of size or level, which organize and bind familiar parts of agro-food systems. Level often refers to the institutional levels of government and markets (e.g. local and national), while size means spatial or organizational reach (e.g. small farms and multi- national corporations). In contrast, relational scale encompasses the spatial, temporal, epistemic, and social infrastructure connections among processes within and across different levels."

The relational scale is defined as the spatial and temporal relations among processes at different levels, as well as the processes connecting elements within levels (Schiavoni, 2014). She explains that the relational scale in food sovereignty is indicated by the shift from the term of boundaries such as local-global or national and international to a term of relationship. The shift is already underway in Flores Timur. The food movement in Flores Timur is recognized as part of a national network of NGOs and identified as part of a successful attempt of a food sovereignty project in Indonesia. The recognition of the local diversity of food and its potential are mentioned in the new food law number 18 in the year 2012. Progress in technology such social media, transportation and Internet is able to diminish the boundaries. For example, any information and local achievement or problem can be responded directly in real time by the national or even the international public through social media and the Internet. A recent case is anonline petition by the NGO consortium regarding sorghum farm eviction in Manggarai Barat, Flores (P3L- NTT Perhimpunan Petani Pangan Lokal, 2016). The case was directly responded to by national NGOs such as Kehati KEHATI and KRKP by official press releases, spreading the petition nationwide. The result is a direct response from the government to settle down the farmers. Instead of dialogue and discussion, the government deployed the army to suppress the uprising. From this example, scale has moved from being distinct between local, national and global to being relational and blurry.

80

FIGURE 17 FLORES FOOD MOVEMENT PETITION ON CHANGE.ORG

If sovereignty is multiple, and scale was relational, then non-linear and non-hierarchical change is possible. Iles & Montenegro de Wit (2014) argue that social movements are complex adaptive systems. The food sovereignty movement in Flores Timur, along with other smaller movements, came together across space to reach a critical threshold. For example, the food movement works with farmers to create a successful practical implementation of food sovereignty at the local level, then works together with national and international networks of NGOs and institutions to create a critical mass to push the state to include and implement a food sovereignty policy. Indonesia food law no. 18 the year 2012 was one of the results of this change. Although the lower and local levels of government have no response to the food movement in Flores Timur, the critical mass has succeeded in including the food sovereignty discourse in the highest food law in Indonesia. This movement became a part of the best practices and building block of critical mass, together with similar movements from all over Indonesia, to put pressure on authorities to pass the new bill.

81

VI. CONCLUSION

The Local Food Movement In Flores Timur is evidence of how everyday politics can influence visible political activity. Kerkvliet (2009) mentions the influence and importance of everyday politics. Farmer everyday politics influence advocacy politics of food sovereignty. It can be seen by the recent emergence of the NGO consortium on the food movement in Flores Timur. Farmer and community everyday politics have enriched the effort of mainstreaming the food sovereignty project in general. I argue that everyday politics is useful to reveal the counter-hegemonic vibe around the actors who are most impacted. The everyday politics of the farmer also influences official politics. For example, supporting the senator candidate who has a clear alignment on the food sovereignty agenda. The candidate can use his support for farmers as political capital to pave the way to the house of representatives, to then support the bill of local food sovereignty. The symbiotic mutual relations between politician and farmer can be nurtured and understood well, rather than being simply seen as patronage or transactional relations.

The effort to reveal subtle and mundane everyday politics is necessary in order to highlight the farmer's role as an active political one. The recent emergence of local food movement are not caused by the involvement a group of people who can organize and engaged with advocacy politics such as NGOs. Rather, it is related to the long standing everyday actions of farmers who resist or contest the dominant discourse. The food sovereignty discourse, with all its characteristics, can be found in the everyday life of a farmer. Farmers have been relying on local seeds and local knowledge to survive in their harsh environment. Their farming practices reflect a subtle counter-hegemonic resistance against any domination. The corporate food regime and food sovereignty project may claim any number of 'magic recipes' on how to improve farmer livelihoods but in fact, it is farmers themselves who know the best strategy to improve their lives. Thus, the farmer's political role must be recognized and expanded as a source of political legitimacy.

Farmers have the capability to negotiate their position with local power holders and also develop multiple livelihood strategies to cope with growing tensions of globalization, the neoliberal agenda and capitalism. For example, farmers in Serinuho negotiate with fellow farmers in another village to borrow the land for free because of strict customary land law. Another example that reflect their resilience is the ability to make the reversible shift from farmer to migrant worker and vice versa. If a farmer needs extra money, they find jobs elsewhere. Then, they go back again to farming after they acquire some money.

The pattern of trusteeship among NGO, State and Farmer continously reproduces inequality. It hampers the development of more equal relations among actors. The dominant narration of "the lack of something" and dramatization of weakness are intended to give the impression that those who want to help have a higher position and authority to govern the beneficiaries. After so many years, agricultural development points out the technical, managerial and institutional solutions but remain insensitive to the fundamental problems of political-economy relations within a context. In the example of Pajinian, poverty is caused by limited land and the shift in land law arrangements. The state agricultural intervention program responded differently. They believe that providing seeds, fertilizers and technical assistance would increase their harvest and generate more cash. The farmers considered those programs useless because they do not correctly address their needs. The NGO

82 consortium wasn't any better either – they know and understand the problem, but they react apathetically and continue to preach about the advantages of local seeds. The problem with trusteeship is the desire to impose an ideal view about something. I found a similar phenomenon explained by Li (2007). She explains that the pattern of trusteeship can be lead to hindrance and even detriment to farmers as beneficiaries, while failing to achieve the goals of intervention.

The food sovereignty project must re-position their relation with the state. The hegemonic character of the corporate food regime affects both political society (nation-state) and civil society (farmer, NGO, market). Thus, re-positioning the relation of the state is important. The state has the potential to facilitate equality and farmer welfare just as they facilitate the corporate food discourse. Gramsci's theory of hegemony becomes relevant for deconstructing the state-farmer relation. The food movement needs to incorporate more collaboration rather than remain oppositional towards the state.

The food sovereignty campaign must be on behalf of the most impacted actors: the farmers. The farmer must be the key actor of the food sovereignty project. Failure, rejection and resistance are obvious consequences if the interests of the farmer are ignored. Chapter 4 has nicely described the farmers of Pajinian who refuse to plant sorghum as a diversity strategy but instead, they plant local corn and rice because of their multifunctional properties. The food sovereignty discourse and characteristics are found in the farmer practices of Flores Timur long before the local food movement emerged. I argue that the perception of failure in the NGO's food sovereignty project is not the failure or rejection of the food sovereignty discourse, but the failure of its intervention program in the name of food sovereignty.

Food sovereignty must continue to evolve and expand without losing its soul. However, the success indicators of the food movement lies in the people themselves. The real success of food sovereignty is not when food sovereignty successfully becomes national policy and mainstream jargon, but when the farmers/consumers feel the advantages of food sovereignty. Most of the farmers accept the market economy with all its rationality, so food sovereignty needs to be flexible and prepare for a broad range of actions and contradictions. Almost all farmers participate in cashew plantations, which have an export orientation and represent the corporate food regime. Contradictions and debates on sovereignty will always exist at every level. This contradiction must be addressed wisely.

Among other important findings of the research, the land law arrangement appears repeatedly as a critical determination towards the successful practical approach of food sovereignty in the everyday life of a farmer. Land rights and the right to recognize customary communal land law arrangements are an important distinctive condition for food sovereignty to succeed. Villages with customary land law arrangements perceive support on food sovereignty. On the other hand, villages with a state land arrangement is less likely to perceive food sovereignty. It is clear that land rights have become one of the prerequisite requirements in the struggle for food sovereignty. However, more research needs to be conducted to isolate what is it about land that contributes to food sovereignty.

I agree with some food sovereignty scholars to employ the concept of multiple sovereignty and 'relational scale' as vantage points to address the contradiction and growing debate. These two concepts are relevant to my findings in Flores Timur. In Figure 18, I give an illustration of how the

83 earlier food policy came up as a way to maintain national sovereignty towards other country and caused farmers to fall into a 'squeezed' position. The state becomes oppressive for the Indonesian context as it happened during the Soeharto era. In this trajectory, the state is vulnerable and fragile due to the hegemonic agenda of the ruling class. They become oppressive in the name of national sovereignty and use it as a tool to maintain order and obedience, to accommodate the interests of the ruling class as well as the nation. For example, the green revolution in Indonesia undermines the small scale farmer and supports the corporate food regime. The political value that perceives food as a weapon might simultaneously invoke national control over a country’s food supply and productive resources, implying a more state-centric vision of sovereignty, and people’s control internally, in a more popular vision of sovereignty (Shattuck et al., 2015).

FIGURE 18 EARLY FOOD SOVEREIGNTY SCHEME

The second shift happens when the state becomes weak, causing boundaries to open as seen in Figure 19. Hence, the market is no longer controllable and sometimes even overcomes national sovereignty itself. Disintegration and privatization worsens the impact on farmers, as they are squeezed between the market and state interest. Multiple sovereignty starts to gain traction because of disagreement and dissatisfaction towards the status quo. Food sovereignty discourses open room to discuss internal sovereignty among interest groups such as NGOs, and private and local actors. Farmer political capacity is inhibited and becomes less respected When the notion of trusteeship is enforced, farmers are perceived as actors who passively influenced and victimized.

84

FIGURE 19 THE NEXT SHIFT : MULTIPLE SOVEREIGNTY

The third is the relational view on sovereignty and scale, as shown in Figure 20. The democratization of everything has recognized farmers as active actors in the debate of food sovereignty. Farmers are recognized as being equal to other actors. They are directly related to different sovereignty actors across space. The state-sovereign is contested and perceived as relational rather than restrictive. These are the next contests that the food sovereignty project should face, embrace, pursue and maintain in the future.

FIGURE 20 MULTIPLE SOVEREIGNTY AND RELATIONAL SCALE

Contradictions in ground implementation has always existed and is respected by the food sovereignty project. The practice of food sovereignty in the ground is more complicated than written

85 in the theory. The farmer tries to accept food sovereignty while complying with the dominant discourse as a day-to-day survival strategy. Instead of choosing one discourse, the farmer keeps diversity as a strategy to survive: diversity of crops, diversity of pathways, diversity of actors and diversity of strategies. The farmer believes that more diversity affects their resilience and reduces the possibility of predatory domination towards their livelihood.

The Flores Timur food sovereignty movement must be compatible with the next debate of the discourse. They must be able to move beyond their comfort zone. They need to be flexible, to reach more stakeholders participating in this growing discourse, all while maintaining the greater vision. Food sovereignty implementation in Flores Timur rejects a singular definition of food sovereignty and deconstructs scale as being relations instead of boundaries. The Flores Timur food movement gives the ground practical evidence about the alternativeness of the food sovereignty discourse. Food sovereignty continues to evolve and provide a powerful framing to trigger further opposition not only towards the corporate food regime, but also any oppression and domination that does not acknowledge diversity.

FUTURE RESEARCH The last remark that I would like to make in this thesis concerns future research opportunities. In my thesis, I explained a lot about relations among actors in the food sovereignty debate. The relations between the state and farmers, and the relations between new actors such as NGOs. I argued about moving the discussion beyond the epistemic ontology of food sovereignty to the more practical and pragmatic concern of the most impacted actors: farmers, consumers and society in general. The next debate is to incorporate more stakeholders in the food sovereignty debate to keep the alternative spirit of the discourse. Discussions and research on the policy implications and tensions of food sovereignty in relation with the state's role are abundant, but its relations to other actors are scant. I propose more research to measure the feasibility, implications and consequences in the relation between non-state actors and food sovereignty. I think we need to review the dominant oppositional character of the food sovereignty-market relation. The question of how to avoid the negative distortion that food sovereignty creates towards their engagement with the market requires further investigation. This future research can be a critical point to demystify the market and give food sovereignty theory more grounded implications and advantages to the most impacted and marginalized actors in the food system.

86

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AMAN. (2013). Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara Petisi untuk Putusan Mahkamah Konstitusi No . 35. Retrieved from http://www.aman.or.id/petisi-mk-35-bahasa-indonesia/

Ashoka. (2012). Maria Loretha. Retrieved January 1, 2015, from http://ashoka.org/fellow/maria- loretha

Aspinall, E. (2013). The Triumph of Capital? Class Politics and Indonesian Democratisation. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 43(2), 226–242. doi:10.1080/00472336.2012.757432

Bates, T. R. (1975). Gramsci and the Theory of Hegemony. Journal of the History of Ideas, 36(2), 351– 366. doi:10.2307/2708933

Bayo, L. N. (2009). State Neglect, Church Decline, and Ascendent Adat: The Power Contestation in Adonara, Eastern Flores. Jurnal Ilmu Sosial Dan Ilmu Politik, 13(2), 149–171.

Bernstein, H. (2013). Food Sovereignty: A skeptical view. Food Sovereignty : A Critical Dialogue Food Sovereignty, #1. doi:10.1590/15174522-017003912

Booth, A. (1989). Indonesian agricultural development in comparative perspective. World Development, 17(8), 1235–1254. doi:10.1016/0305-750X(89)90235-0

Bottema, A., Sukesi, K., & Seran, S. (2009). NTT at Crossroads. Report commissioned by UNRC to support the UNDAF Process. Retrieved from www.un.or.id/documents_upload/.../NTT at a crossroads.pdf

BPS. (2008). NTT dalam Angka 2008. Retrieved from https://pustaka-ntt.googlecode.com/.../NTT dalam Angka 2008....

Claeys, P. (2012). The Creation of New Rights by the Food Sovereignty Movement: The Challenge of Institutionalizing Subversion. Sociology, 46(5), 844–860. doi:10.1177/0038038512451534

CNN. (2015, November). KPPU Bongkar Jaringan Mafia Beras di 11 Provinsi. jakarta. Retrieved from http://www.cnnindonesia.com/ekonomi/20151113202906-92-91566/kppu-bongkar-jaringan- mafia-beras-di-11-provinsi/

Cribb, R. (1991). The Indonesian killings of 1965-1966: studies from Java and Bali.

Edelman, M. (2014). The next stage of the food sovereignty debate. Dialogues in Human Geography, 4(2), 182–184. doi:10.1177/2043820614537153

Fuglie, K. O., & Piggott, R. R. (2006). Indonesia: Coping with Economic and Political Instability. Agricultural R&D in the Developing World: Too Little, Too Late? doi:10.1017/S0014479707005479

Goldman, M. (2005). Imperial Nature: the World Bank and Sstruggles for Social Justice in the Age of Globalization. Yale agrarian studies. Yale University Press.

Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in Practice. Taylor & Francis. Retrieved from https://books.google.nl/books?id=IK1-AgAAQBAJ

Hilhorst, D. (2003). The Real World of NGOs: Discourses, Diversity and Development. Zed Books. Retrieved from https://books.google.nl/books?id=jUsqAAAAYAAJ

87

Holt Giménez, E. (2010). Food Security, Food Justice, or Food Sovereignty. Food First Backgrounder, 16(4), 1–4.

Holt Giménez, E., & Shattuck, A. (2011). Food crises, food regimes and food movements: rumblings of reform or tides of transformation? The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(1), 109–144. doi:10.1080/03066150.2010.538578

Id.wikipedia, E. (2010). peta-Lokasi_Nusa_Tenggara_Timur_Kabupaten_Flores_Timur. Retrieved from Ewesewes at id.wikipedia

Iles, A., & Montenegro de Wit, M. (2014). Sovereignty at What Scale? An Inquiry into Multiple Dimensions of Food Sovereignty. Globalizations, 12(January 2015), 1–17. doi:10.1080/14747731.2014.957587

Indonesia geospatial Information Agency. (2015). Indonesian Map. Indonesian Geospatial Information Agency. Retrieved from http://www.big.go.id/assets/download/nkri/NKRI5jt.jpg

Jarosz, L. (2014). Comparing food security and food sovereignty discourses. Dialogues in Human Geography, 4(2), 168–181. doi:10.1177/2043820614537161

Jayaraju, N., & J Abdullah, K. (2013). Developments in Soil Classification, Land Use Planning and Policy Implications. Developments in Soil Classification, Land Use Planning and Policy Implications, 4(25), 577–590. doi:10.1007/978-94-007-5332-7

Kerkvliet, T. B. J. (2009). Everyday politics in peasant societies (and ours). The Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(1), 227–243.

Kompas. (2013, March). Regulasi Impor Pangan Ciptakan Kartel dan Mafia, pp. 5–7. Jakarta. Retrieved from http://nasional.kompas.com/read/2013/03/18/21005643/Regulasi.Impor.Pangan.Ciptakan.Kart el.dan.Mafia

Li, T. M. (2007). The will to improve: Governmentality, development, and the practice of politics. Duke University Press.

Li, T. M. (2012). To Make Live or Let Die? Rural Dispossession and the Protection of Surplus Populations. The Point Is to Change It: Geographies of Hope and Survival in an Age of Crisis, 41, 66–93. doi:10.1002/9781444397352.ch4

Li, T. M. (2014). Can there be food sovereignty here? The Journal of Peasant Studies, 6150(January 2015), 1–7. doi:10.1080/03066150.2014.938058

Marcus, G. E. (1995). Ethnography in/of the World System: the Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography. Annual Reviews, 24, 95–117. doi:10.1146/annurev.an.24.100195.000523

McMichael, P. (2005). Global development and the corporate food regime. Research in Rural Sociology and Development, 11, 265.

McMichael, P. (2008). Global citizenship and multiple sovereignties. In Y. Atasoy (Ed.), Hegemonic transitions, the state and crisis in neoliberal capitalism (pp. 23–42). Taylor & Francis.

McMichael, P. (2009a). A food regime analysis of the “world food crisis.” Agriculture and Human Values, 26(4), 281–295. doi:10.1007/s10460-009-9218-5

McMichael, P. (2009b). A food regime genealogy. Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(1), 139–169. Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150902820354

88

Melossi, D. (2006). Michel Foucault and the obsolescent state: Between the American century and the dawn of the European Union. Michel Foucault and Power Today. International Multidisciplinary Studies in the History of the Present, 6–34.

Ministry of Internal affair Republic of Indonesia. (2013). Daerah Otonom ( Provinsi , Kabupaten , Dan Kota ) Di Indonesia Per Desember 2013, (1), 1–11. Retrieved from http://www.otda.kemendagri.go.id/index.php/data-otda-158/seputar-otda

Mitlin, D., Hickey, S., & Bebbington, A. (2007). Reclaiming Development? NGOs and the Challenge of Alternatives. World Development, 35(10), 1699–1720. doi:10.1016/j.worlddev.2006.11.005

Nally, D. (2011). The biopolitics of food provisioning. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 36, 37–53. doi:10.1111/j.1475-5661.2010.00413.x

Neilson, J. (2013). A matter of life or death. Inside Indonesia, (114), 68. Retrieved from http://www.insideindonesia.org/a-matter-of-life-or-death-for-the-indonesian-nation-2

Neilson, J., & Arifin, B. (2011). Food Security and the De-Agrarianisation of the Indonesian Economy. Christopher Rosin, Paul Stock and Hugh Campbell “Food Systems Failure: The Global Food Crisis and the Future of Agriculture” (Earthscan Food and Agriculture).

Nyeleni. (2007). Declaration of Nyéléni. Forum for Food Sovereignty, (February).

P3L- NTT (Perhimpunan petani Pangan Lokal). (2016). Petisi Untuk Presiden Jokowi dan Menteri Pertanian Bapak Presiden Republik Indonesia, Lindungilah Ladang dan Tanaman Pangan Lokal Petani. www.change.org. Retrieved from https://www.change.org/p/bapak-presiden-republik- indonesia-lindungilah-ladang-dan-tanaman-pangan-lokal-petani

Patel, R., & McMichael, P. (2004). Third Worldism and the lineages of global fascism: the regrouping of the global South in the neoliberal era. Third World Quarterly, 25(1), 231–254. doi:10.1080/0143659042000185426

Popkin, S. L. (1979). The rational peasant: The political economy of rural society in Vietnam. Univ of California Press.

Republic of Indonesia. (2012). BILL OF THE REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA NUMBER 18 YEAR 2012 CONCERNING FOOD, (18). Retrieved from faolex.fao.org/docs/pdf/ins139381E.pdf

Robinson, G. (1995). The dark side of paradise: political violence in Bali. Cornell University Press.

Schiavoni, C. M. (2014). Working Paper Competing sovereignties , contested processes The politics of food sovereignty construction, (583).

Scott, J. C. (1977). The moral economy of the peasant: Rebellion and subsistence in Southeast Asia. Yale University Press.

Shattuck, A., Schiavoni, C. M., & VanGelder, Z. (2015). Translating the Politics of Food Sovereignty: Digging into Contradictions, Uncovering New Dimensions. Globalizations, 12(4), 421–433. doi:10.1080/14747731.2015.1041243

Sidik, M. (2004). Indonesia rice policy in view of trade liberalization. FAO Rice Conference, (February), 12–13. Retrieved from http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&btnG=Search&q=intitle:INDONESIA+RICE+POLICY+IN +VIEW+OF+TRADE+LIBERALIZATION#0

Siregar, M., & Suryadi, M. (2005). Changes in food crop diversification in indonesia. Retrieved from

89

www.uncapsa.org/publication/wp97.pdf

SPI. (2008). Pandangan dan Sikap SPI tentang kedaulatan pangan (SPi’s policy stance and approach to food sovereignty). Retrieved January 1, 2016, from http://www.spi.or.id/329/

Taum, Y. Y. (1997). Kisah Wato Wele-Lia Nurat dalam tradisi puisi lisan Flores Timur. Yayasan Obor Indonesia.

Tempo. (2013, January). Suap Daging PKS, Begini Awal Mulanya. Koran Tempo, pp. 11–12. Jakarta. Retrieved from http://m.tempo.co/read/news/2013/01/31/063458101/Suap-Daging-PKS- Begini-Awal-Mulanya

The Economist. (2012). Global Food Security Index Country Summary : Indonesia. Retrieved from http://foodsecurityindex.eiu.com/Resources

Timmer, C. P. (1975). The political economy of rice in Asia: Indonesia. Food Research Institute Studies, 14(3), 197–231.

USAID. (2002). Food Security in an Era of Decentralization : Historical Lessons and Policy Implications for Indonesia, (7).

Wang, K. (2015, December). Traditional Foods Make A Comeback. Retrieved September 21, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/ashoka/2014/12/10/traditional-foods-make-a-comeback/

Winters, J. A. (2014). Oligarchy. In The Encyclopedia of Political Thought. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. doi:10.1002/9781118474396.wbept0726

Zizek, S. (2014). Slavoj Žižek at FBAUP _The Freedom of a Forced Choice_ - YouTube. Conference by Slavoj Žižek at the Faculty of Fine Arts University of Porto. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHzFbzyvEqw

90