The Underlying Causes of Poverty among Rice Farmers in Indonesia

Abstract

Despite huge amount of support in the form of subsidy, infrastructure development such as irrigation system, and agricultural advisor, Indonesian rice farmers are still in general not doing so well. This raises the question of why could that be. Conservative views put education to the blame without further explanations. However, we argue that the problem is not just as simple as that. This paper therefore explores the underlying causes of rice farmers' poverty in Indonesia with case studies from North Sumatera. Applying qualitative research using in-depth interview as the data collection tool, we seek to interview officials from the agricultural office as well as rice farmers and the head of farmer union in the case study areas. Results show that rice farmers, as of generally all farmers in Indonesia, do not possess adequate facility to process their commodity and to add value to it. They also do not have access to market with no control over the price. Thus they are merely rice growers, similar to labors in industry.