Abstract
Land conversion of oil palm plantations in the villages of West Kalimantan has caused drastic changes in how farmers fulfill their basic household needs. One such change affects farmers’ food security. This study aimed to explain the deterioration of food self-sufficiency at the village level due to the pressure to use residual pockets of land for oil palm cultivation. The collected evidence was analyzed through an assessment of their residual pockets of land in a single village. A case study survey collected data from July until September 2019 in the village of Batu Barat, district of Kayong Utara, West Kalimantan Province, Indonesia. The study utilized 70 family heads as samples for interviews. They were selected through a simple random sampling technique. We used descriptive quantitative and qualitative methods in our investigation. The results confirmed that the current utilization of the village’s residual lands actually entails even greater food insecurity for farmers, as exemplified by a sizeable decrease in rice fields to merely an estimated 0.59 hectares per household. By contrast, the land utilized by independent smallholders of oil palm cultivation increased to an average of approximately 0.67 hectares per household. This land conversion not only exacerbated food-farmland availability but
Highlights
The massive expansion of the Indonesian oil palm industry has drastically altered many aspects of village life (McCarthy, 2010)
We argue that the optimal utilization of the residual pockets of land within a village for food diversification is the final means to prevent greater risk
While there is a study that investigated such changes in the regional context of Kalimantan (Santika et al, 2019b), we argue that a site scale analysis is needed to check the phenomena on the ground
Summary
The massive expansion of the Indonesian oil palm industry has drastically altered many aspects of village life (McCarthy, 2010). Earlier studies on oil palm adoption in Indonesia highlight the contradiction between its positive and negative impacts on farmers’ welfare. Some studies relate the impressive contribution of oil palm plantations to farmer income (Feintrenie et al, 2010; Budidarsono et al, 2012a; Budidarsono et al, 2012b). Oil palm expands socioeconomic gaps (Semedi, 2014) and decreases the overall rate of improvement for social and environmental well-being (Santika et al, 2019a). In villages that are based on traditional subsistence, oil palm tends to deteriorate socio-ecological welfare (Santika et al, 2019b)
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