Toddy trees and rice-farms: understanding their support to ecology and livelihoods in Rote island

Abstract

The Toddy palm (Borassuss flabellifer, L.) plays a role as a staple food for the Rotenese on Rote Island, East Nusa Tenggara (ENT). Over decades, the national rice-bias policy in agricultural development has had an impact on changes in people’s food consumption, including Rotenese. The study aims to identify the Toddy palm’s changing area, a livelihood shift strategy related to those changes, and the economic and ecological support of toddy palm and rice crops for Rotenese’s livelihood. The methodology was a literature study and a survey with interviews of 15 toddy-rice farmers. The study revealed that farmers did not convert any toddy land because of expanding the rice area. Livelihood strategies are more carried out because of changes in farmers’ age than because of changes in land area. Changing was more on toddy’s product diversification. Toddy-rice crop farming has been proven to bring economic and ecological benefits to people on Rote Island. The decline in sap tappers numbers requires modern tapping technology to attract younger generations. The paper highlighted that it is important to maintain and preserve the toddy palm population/areas to guarantee food security and livelihoods for local communities that are highly dependent on it.