Page 14 - Ranah Studi Agraria: Penguasaan Tanah dan Hubungan Agraris

Kata Pengantar

B. Beginnings 1963 – 1969: from Agrarian Reform to
“Getting Agriculture Moving”
Although many of us remember the SAE’s role during the
first half of the Suharto ‘New Order’ regime, the SAE was actu-
ally a creation of the last “years of living dangerously” of
Sukarno’s ‘Old Order’. The SAE was established in 1965 by the
Indonesian government “to compile data on and assess agri-

cultural resources and the condition of rural society, and to
evaluate programmes already in operation and their effects
on agricultural production and rural society” (de Vries 1969:
73).
Discussions on establishing the SAE has been held with
the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation in 1963 but were
inconclusive. In 1964 the government approached the Ford
Foundation for assistance, which was originally provided
through the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague under the
coordination of the Institute’s Rector Professor Egbert de
Vries. The SAE was formally established in February 1965,
administered by a Working Body (Badan Kerja) chaired by
Professor Kampto Utomo (Sajogyo). Within a few years more
than one hundred university-based researchers, and another
hundred fieldworkers (mainly students from agricultural facul-
ties of IPB, UI, Unpad and UGM) had become recruited and
involved in seventeen different research projects. Reflecting
on the SAE’s first years, Professor de Vries pointed to the crea-
tive and flexible organization created by Professor Sajogyo,
based on ad hoc research teams with mixed composition,
coming together to exchange ideas in periodic seminars. It is
also interesting to note the three “hypotheses as fundamental

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