The Batin Sembilan Community in Jambi Province: Socio- Cultural Elements in Enhancing Local Food Security

Abstract

The policy of resettling the Batin Sembilan people, from living in the forest and finding food in the forest to living in housing, has created complex socio-cultural dynamics related to community food security. This article explains the various socio-cultural implications of the Batin Sembilan people in food security and diversification. Orang Batin Sembilan in this paper is a community group that lives in the Bahar River area in Jambi, and is settled in Kelumpang village in the Hutan Harapan area, under the guidance of PT. REKI, a non-profit company engaged in ecosystem conservation by managing forest areas in Jambi. The purpose of this research is to understand how the Orang Batin Sembilan have come from a nomadic way of life to living in a settlement by utilizing limited forest products and starting to plant and have their own fish ponds in the neighborhood. A deep understanding of the process of changing ways of life and changing food culture in various dimensions provides a model for problem solving and lessons learned for the preparation of community food security plans. Using qualitative methods, and an ethnographic approach, the results showed that the long process of changing the nomadic way of life in the forest to the settlement area made Orang Batin Sembilan independent in food and created diversification of food sources.
 Keywords: food diversification, nomadic to sedentary, Batin Sembilan, food security