Being the world’s most populous country, the Chinese may only notice the population numbers of India and the superpower United States next door. Few would have thought that Indonesia, a Southern Ocean island nation, has become the fourth most populous country in the world.
Within East Asia to South Asia, Indonesia ranks third with 268 million
Of which Java accounts for 145 million
With a population of 268 million, Indonesia’s land is mostly made up of islands that are not only fragmented but also have few plains to develop and a very tight Food supply. Yet the country has managed to feed so many people with crop replacement, land rotation, expansion of new arable land and foreign food purchases.
Rainforests, volcanoes and rice paddies make up Indonesia’s traditional agricultural landscape
Feeding 200 million people on a tropical island is not easy
Traditional production methods alone are certainly not enough
(The countries in the map below have a combined population of 4 billion)
Of course, the extreme use of land resources is also bound to take its toll on human beings ……
Too dense and too sparse
Indonesia is a super archipelago of 17,000 islands. These islands are large and small, 6,000 of them inhabited, but none of them can really compete with the strength of Java, which is the core. The country’s agriculture, too, first appeared on this core island, which is not very large.
There are thousands of islands in Indonesia, but the key is Java
The main population, arable land, and major cities are all in Java (view in landscape)
(Bottom image from: NASA) ▼
Numerous historical sites in Indonesia also confirm this.
Several of Indonesia’s most prestigious architectural artifacts, Borobudur and the Balambanan stone sculptures, show one not only images of farmers plowing with water buffaloes, but also of the native kings of the Time imposing agricultural taxes on farmers. On other islands in Indonesia, it is difficult to see such relics.
To reproduce the world in people’s minds on a building
(which encompasses both the real world and the spiritual world)
Agriculture and cattle, which are so important, also have a place in it
(Borobudur, photo by shutterstock@Adel Newman)▼
A relief of buffalo farming on Borobudur
It is likely that many small islands did not have formal forms of agriculture at the time.
(Image from: Wikipedia@Tropenmuseum)▼
Although the terrain on Java, like almost all other domestic islands, is not flat, the volcanoes that dot the landscape offer hope for Life on this island. During their eruptions, volcanoes melt the ores in the ground, bringing the trace elements they contain to the surface, where they are deposited to form minerals of nutritional value to plants.
East of Java as seen from the International Space Station
Extending eastward to Bali, Nusa Tenggara Islands
There are many volcanoes on Java, and many on the islands extending eastward
(Satellite view of Java, image from: Wikipedia@NASA)▼
The Ijen volcanic complex on the eastern tip of Java, Indonesia
Nearby is the famous volcano of Ravon (view in landscape)
(Ijen volcanic complex, image from: shutterstock@travelwild) ▼
The soils of Java contain large amounts of iron, magnesium and potassium derived from molten pyroxene, hornblende and feldspar. Magnesium is the main component of plant chlorophyll, which also promotes the production of enzymes in plants and has a stimulating effect on seed maturation; potassium is even more useful for agriculture, as plants deficient in potassium have weak root systems, slow growth and tend to collapse, which seriously affects crop yields.
Such land combined with Indonesia’s high sunshine factor and high precipitation, supplying an advanced farming nation is indeed not surprising.
Since the entire island of Java is used for agricultural development whenever possible
A great deal of the agricultural land is actually in hilly terrain with rolling topography
Terraced rice farming is also quite common
(View of terraced rice fields in West Java, image via shutterstock@EDDY H) ▼
But the farming conditions on the rest of the country’s islands are not as outstanding. This is, after all, a country made up of a string of islands, which means that the flat land on its territory is quite limited. In fact, Indonesia’s arable land accounts for only and 13% of the country’s land area, 12% of which is already permanent farmland, and this includes a number of cases of extreme land use beyond the plains, such as the famous Indonesian tourist destination of Bali.
Although Bali, east of Java, is small and mainly mountainous
But agricultural development is adequate▼
This is a small island near Java, famous for its beautiful scenery between the mountains and the sea. However, the local ancestors did not have much time to enjoy the beauty that modern people enjoy, as they had to find a way to feed themselves on an island that is more than 90% mountainous, with only a small amount of flat land in the south.
Bali’s mostly mountainous terrain
But from the slopes and foothills, man has developed as much of it as possible into farmland
The result is Subak, Bali’s World Heritage Site – a set of agricultural facilities and social structures built around the development of terraces and water supply.
A set of economic and social structures organized around terraced agriculture and water development
The economic and social organization organized around terraced agriculture and water development
(View of terraced agriculture in Bali)
This set of terraces first appeared in the 10th century A.D. The terraces are supplied by canals, culverts, and other water facilities that collect mountain springs and rainwater for the terrace system. There are a total of 1,200 water catchment areas throughout the island, each supplying water to the paddy fields of 50 to 400 farming families. In the water network system, the Balinese ancestors also planted trees vigorously to prevent soil erosion.
Overlooking the Balinese terraces
Meanwhile, in order to make the water supply system long lasting, the Balinese even integrated the canal maintenance into the religious system, with monks from ancient temples managing the whole system, and the saboteurs would be punished not only by secular but also by moral and divine condemnation, which makes the whole system work to this day.
The majority of Indonesia’s population is of the Islamic faith
Bali, on the other hand, is predominantly Hindu, which is quite unique
Only through massive up-front infrastructure and the design of a matching social system could the Balinese have enough to eat, and the inhabitants of the other islands would not have an easier time of it than they did. The difficulty of being self-sufficient in crops in Indonesia is evident.
While this system can still function well
But labor-intensive rice farming with traditional techniques
It is possible to eat, but it is difficult to get rich
The “good” things brought by the colonists
In the 16th century, the Portuguese came to Indonesia in search of business opportunities in the East, and became the first European colonists to appear here. However, the good life of the Portuguese did not last long, as the Netherlands became independent and rose to power. Indonesia, a land at the crossroads of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, was so important that the Dutch would stop at nothing to take over the archipelago and soon took control of it.
The most famous Dutch overseas colonies were the East Indies and South Africa
However, Dutch colonies mainly served commercial interests
Empire-building and local administration were not Dutch strengths▼
Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia today, was historically known as “Batavia,” which is the Latin name for the Netherlands.
The Dutch settled in Batavia (now Jakarta)
The Portuguese and Dutch brought new crops from the New World to Indonesia, including corn and potatoes, which could be grown in the mountains, and peppers and tomatoes, which added flavor to the food. Because of Indonesia’s particular advantage of rain and heat, these crops often grow quickly with a little cultivation and spread more rapidly than in Northeast Asian countries such as China, Japan and Korea.
Potato farms in West Java
Also labor-intensive, but the processing is really convenient
Yet the problem of feeding Indonesians was not completely solved. Because for these European colonists, the purpose of going to the East was to find spice empires, and Indonesia’s sphere of influence happened to be an excellent source of spices. By controlling Indonesia, the Dutch East India Company almost monopolized the trade of pepper and nutmeg between the East and West at that time, and began to force cash crops such as sugar cane, tobacco and palm to make up for the deficit caused by Dutch competition with Belgium and England in Europe.
Coffee plantations in Java during the Dutch period
This period of history is known in Indonesia as Tanam Paksa, which means “compulsory planting”. The Dutch East India Company made it mandatory for rural areas to surrender 20% of their land for cash crops or to surrender farmers who could work on government plantations for 60 days, and severely restricted the sale of land and the movement of farmers. In the testimony of some Indonesian historians, the Dutch even expropriated close to 100% of Java’s land for cash crops (actual unknown).
The cash crop income would fill the colonists’ pockets
while leaving the farmers’ stomachs empty
Indonesia, which was already strapped for staple food agriculture, saw its food supply deteriorate rapidly after giving up such a large amount of land for food cultivation. By the 1840s, the full effect was felt, and famine broke out on the fertile island of Java. The compulsory cultivation strategy was thus abolished.
While the colonizers would bring new technologies and business models, the local indigenous population would hardly reap the benefits of them, and would even have to pay for the colonizers’ bad decisions. The Indonesians saw this lesson of history again in the subsequent history.
Spices were followed by sugar cane and tobacco, and tobacco was followed by rubber
Cash crops are the dominant industry in tropical countries
But it is also a resource-based economy led by demand
A resource trap for tropical countries
In 1942, The Japanese army moving south occupied Indonesia (Dutch East Indies). This time they did not force the locals to grow cash crops in large quantities, as the days of sugar and tobacco were over. Although the Japanese still retained the ability to grow natural rubber in Indonesia, rice cultivation was put back on track under the leadership of the Japanese garrison.
Planting for the Dutch finished for the Japanese
Rubber trees were introduced to Indonesia by the Dutch from South America
Now it is also a major specialty industry in Indonesia
However, although the rice production in Indonesia was rising, famine was still widespread because all the rice was shipped away by Japan as military food and local war food, leaving nothing for the locals.
The tragic memory of the country made the government of Indonesia after the restoration of independence always attach great importance to food production and carried out a series of colonization campaigns with the goal of achieving food self-sufficiency.
In fact, there is still a lot of land worth developing, just not in Java
(Land development in the rainforest of Kalimantan Island)
Be active in eating
After independence in 1949, the Sukarno government proposed a “migration plan” that called for the mass relocation of farmers from the densely populated islands of Java, Bali and Madura to Kalimantan (Borneo), Sumatra and Sulawesi, turning land that had remained unexplored for thousands of years and still in pristine rainforest conditions into good land.
So much land in other big islands
Why don’t you want to go there?
This was not original to the Sukarno government, as early as the Dutch colonial period, the Dutch had already started to relocate Javanese to other islands to enhance development. This process continued until the Dutch withdrew from Indonesia in the late 1940s. And after Sukarno, the Suharto government, which was completely opposite to his political views, also continued this program.
It is evident that the development of the country other than Java was a consensus among all rulers in Indonesia, and could even be implemented continuously across political regimes and views.
These two men are often discussed as positive and negative
However, on the point of immigration and colonization, there is a high degree of agreement
(Sukarno (left) and Suharto (right))
Since then, Indonesia’s supremacy has been passed between Sukarno and Suharto’s political heirs, and the Great Migration Program has been steadfastly implemented.
By the 1990s, the agricultural component of the migration program finally reached its pinnacle – the Mega Rice Project (MRP) was introduced.
The goal was to develop the southern part of Kalimantan on a large scale.
The Mega Rice Project is being implemented in southern Kalimantan and aims to turn one million hectares of swampy forest into rice fields to alleviate Indonesia’s growing food problem. The central government spent heavily to dig more than 4,000 kilometers of water channels in this area to prepare the rice fields. Forests were a hindrance, but people at the time also saw them as a raw material for generating income, and cutting timber while digging canals even created a virtuous cycle in terms of economic benefits alone.
Timber has always been a key export commodity for Borneo
Now, with agricultural development, logging has continued unabated (view in landscape)
But the construction process has always been faster than the deforestation process, and by the middle of the project, the eager government began to acquiesce to workers burning the forest to make way for the pipeline.
They failed to take into account, however, that the forests in southern Kalimantan, known as peat swamp forests, are covered with a surface layer of peat, a semi-finished product of plant decomposition that can be seen as incompletely developed coal. The consequences of lighting a fire on a pile of coal were predictable, not only did the fire quickly get out of control, but it also caused serious air pollution.
This is how the great haze in Southeast Asia in 1997 was caused.
So it is not surprising that the garden city of Singapore haze
Even have gotten used to it
And in the aftermath of the fires, the swampy forests were reduced to a scorched earth. Without the water retention and transpiration of plants, the forest, which could accumulate up to two meters of water in the rainy season, was in drought. Realizing the disaster, the Indonesian government finally stopped the crazy “Super Rice Project”, but it was too late, because the peat swamp forest is extremely complex and fragile, and it will take centuries to recover.
Another bad consequence of unscientific development is that it has been followed by others. With the government’s missteps ahead of them, many of the Indonesian farmers who were relocated to the island followed suit, cutting down forest trees to dry them before the dry season, then lighting them on fire during the dry season and using the ash as fertilizer on the same land for several years until the fertility ran out and they moved on to the next field to continue the cycle.
Large palm plantations in East Kalimantan
Since there is still a lot of undeveloped land in Kalimantan and other areas, farmers have no incentive to rotate their crops, which worsens the soil and water situation.
In addition, there are mountain fires as a direct consequence of setting fire to mountains. Due to abnormal climate change, mountain fires have been raging all over the world in the last year, and the fires in Indonesia have been equally fierce, creating a suffocating haze throughout Southeast Asia, which can only be attributed to man-made disasters.
The Indonesian government also realized at this time that brutal development would not provide long-lasting peace of mind for the food supply, but would instead create new problems, so in 2015 it ended its migration program and began gradually punishing farmers for burning mountains.
But with nearly 300 million people waiting to be fed, solutions still need to be found. By subsidizing irrigation schemes, pesticides, fertilizers, and high-yield seeds, the government has managed to double rice yields and increase total production by more than 7 percent annually, essentially achieving self-sufficiency and going from being the world’s sixth largest food importer to a country that does not need to import much food.
At the same time, however, the price control system, which was designed to ensure that the urban population could eat, had the effect of hurting the farmers, and “helped” to tear Indonesia apart politically.
The growth of a developing country seems to be a game of “breakthroughs” that requires a constant search for new solutions to changing problems. Who can eliminate these problems one by one, who can stand on the next step.
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