Lumbung sebagai Alternatif Gerakan Perlawanan Petani

Petani penggarap dan buruh tani representatif mayoritas petani Indonesia.

Supaya tidak keliru memahami seperti apa sesungguhnya  potret petani  Indonesia,  yang paling utama kita mesti melihat kepemilikan dan penguasaan lahan petani Indonesia. Lebih dari 70% petani Indonesia, termasuk di Propinsi Jawa Tengah dicirikan dengan keberadaan petani landless alias hanya memiliki lahan yang sempit bahkan tidak bertanah. Prosentase terbesar petani Indonesia memiliki lahan kurang dari 2000m2, bahkan sebagian besar diantarannya tidak memiliki lahan sama sekali, mereka yang sering kita sebut sebagai buruh tani.

Pembangunan pertanian revolusi hijau tanpa reforma agraria.

Hal ini penting untuk selalu dikemukakan karena  Rezim ORBA hingga Rezim SBY – Budiono hari ini telah memilih dan menjalankan kebijakan pembangunan pertanian tanpa  penataan  sumber agraria tanah atau reforma agraria. Hal ini tampak jelas dengan tidak dijalankkannya UU Pokok Agraria No. 5 Tahun 1960. Dipelopori oleh Rezim ORBA dengan pengesahan UU PMA  No. 1 Tahun 1967 yang  diwariskan dan dikokohkan hingga rezim hari ini,  dengan disahkannya berbagai UU sektoral, peraturan pemerintah dan peraturan lainnya yang lebih mengutamakan kepentingan pemodal  asing maupun domestik.

Pemerintah Soeharto hingga SBY hari ini lebih memilih pembangunan pertanian dengan revoluasi hijau yang sarat dengan kepentingan bisnis perusahaan – perusahaan benih, pupuk dan pestisida. Atas nama kepentingan swasembada pangan Soeharto dengan disokong  aparatus militer pada waktu itu menggerakkan pertanian massal dengan revolusi hijau. Pertanian massal tersebut terbukti gagal karena swasembada pangan tidak bertahan lama yang terjadi justru sebaliknya situasi kerawanan dan kerentanan pangan.

Petani Perempuan Sedunia Berkumpul di Jakarta, Serukan Kedaulatan Pangan & Tolak Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan

copyrights La Via Campesina 

JAKARTA.  Majelis Petani Perempuan Internasional ke-4 La Via Campesina yang menghadirkan 250 petani dari 76 negara pagi ini (06/06) resmi dibuka.  Acara yang diselenggarakan di gedung serbaguna Padepokan Pencak Silat, Jakarta Timur ini dibuka dengan pagelaran tarian khas Sumatera Selatan dan Aceh.

Yoon Geum Soon, perwakilan Koordinator Komite Internasional La Via Campesina mengemukakan, sejak kelahirannya dua puluh tahun lalu, La Via Campesina telah berupaya untuk mendorong partisipasi perempuan dalam semua tingkat tindakan, pemangku kekuasaan, dan lainnya sebagai cara untuk mengakui pentingnya perempuan dalam proses pembangunan politik gerakan, dan sebagai cara untuk memberantas semua jenis diskriminasi jender.

“Bahkan, peran wanita di Via Campesina adalah bagian dari apa yang membuat gerakan ini tetap eksis baik dalam sejarah gerakan tani dan di antara gerakan sosial dan organisasi internasional,” ungkap petani perempuan asal Korea Selatan ini.

copyrights La Via Campesina 

IV International Women's Assembly at La Via Campesina

copyrights: LaVia Campesina

(Jakarta, June 7, 2013) Cheers of “Hooray for peasant women! We are the mothers of food sovereignty!” launched the IV Women’s Assembly of La Vía Campesina. The memory of María do Fetal, who died last year as a victim of violence, has been taken up again at this Assembly, which will also stress the importance of ending violence against women of the country and the city.

Today began a day of debate, in which more than 300 peasant women from every corner of the world have gathered, and in which the context of the crisis and capitalism and its consequences for women were analyzed.

Following the conferences in India in 2000, Brazil in 2004 and Mozambique in 2008, the meeting in Indonesia will focus on patriarchy, feminism and the construction of a peasant-based and popular feminism that recognizes the diversity of the women who are part of La Vía Campesina. Today begin two days of significant debate over their fights, their challenges and their aspirations, under the slogan “Sowing the seeds of action and hope, for feminism and food sovereignty!”

copyrights: LaVia Campesina

Elisabeth Mpofu, representative from the Organization of Small-scale Farmers of Zimbabwe, has condemned “the effects of capitalism that has influenced the Free Trade Agreements and has given rise to the deregulation that harms alternative development”. She has also insisted that the “crisis of capitalism has taken it out on the poorest, especially on women of the country, snatching away their access to quality markets and products”. “The financial policies imposed by the West have negatively affected the food sovereignty of the local communities, increasing the differences between rich and poor”.

Alternative Food Sources

THE biggest portion of the Indonesian population around 241 million in 2011 is farmers. But this fact is not counterbalanced by the fact that food shortage is affecting 100 regencies in Indonesia or around 25 million people are facing famine. Unproductive lands is one of the root problems as so often seen in East Nusa Tenggara and Kalimantan

Another glaring problem is the weak purchasing power of the locals. Food may be abundant but they are out of reach for the poor. Lack of knowledge to process traditional food has quite often become the hurdle, especially in the eastern part of Indonesia where the culinary methods are not yet as sophisticated as those of Java and Bali. In East Nusa Tenggara, for example, people in rural areas usually mixed corn and beans for protein since they could not afford meat. But the invasion of modern culture has made them inclined to eat more meat.

As a result, their knowledge of traditional food processing using locally available materials is gradually fading. Muhamad Syukri, a researcher from the Smeru Research Institute told Tempo: "Regional food resilience is people's way of adapting to local conditions a [kind of] strategy whereby they make use of available resources," he said. The government, according to Syukri, is for sure incapable of fulfilling national rice supply. Therefore, locals' efforts to organize village grain storages as in Tampumia village, South Sulawesi must be supported.

Maria Loretha : Striving for food democracy

Farmer Maria Loretha is very fond of her home in Adonara Island, East Flores.

It was not always like that when she came in 1999 to live with her husband, Jeremias Letor, a native of the island in East Nusa Tenggara. After spending time as college sweethearts in Malang-based Merdeka University, she learned love the hard way.

Being raised in the cities of Java, the Dayak native had to learn to live without electricity and limited food choices. Fish and land are abundant on the island, but she could not cultivate them with her law degree. To be a civil servant was impossible with the local government plagued by nepotism.

She adapted well by being a housewife and a mother until she felt the need to help her husband, who had inherited six hectares, to cultivate the land to make ends meet in 2005. She started to plant corn and foxtail millet alongside her husband’s coconut and cashew trees. 

“This is what we have. I believe that God will provide and He doesn’t close his eyes,” she said.