Page 15 - Ranah Studi Agraria: Penguasaan Tanah dan Hubungan Agraris

Ranah Studi Agraria

approaches to research” which Professor Sajogyo had set out,
according to de Vries:

“That the Indonesian peasant acts rationally in an economic
sense, although within very narrow sociological, economic
and administrative constraints; that detailed knowledge
about this ‘operational climate’ of the peasant is not currently
available, and that […] new data were urgently needed; and
that students and staff members of agricultural institutions
with real interest in the welfare of the village can earn the
confidence of the inhabitants and obtain honest and realistic
answers” (de Vries 1969: 75).

It is important to remember the policy context of these
early years; this is the period in which the focus in agricultural
development, in Indonesia and many other countries, shifted
from structural change through “agrarian reform” to techno-
logical change through the “green revolution”. At the time of
the discussions leading to SAE’s establishment, the issue of
agrarian reform was still firmly on the agenda, among both the
political parties and the agricultural faculties. It was also on
the agenda of donor organizations such as USAID, the World
Bank, the Ford Foundation and the (Rockefeller-funded) Agri-
cultural Development Council (ADC) who saw agrarian reform
as a necessary anti-communist strategy. This may be seen, for

example, in the three consultancy visits to Indonesia made by
the US-based, anti-communist land reform adviser Wolf
Ladejinsky, sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Agri-
cultural Development Council in 1961, 1962 and 1963. 4

4 Two of Ladejinsky’s reports from these visits, originally written in
1961 and 1964, are published in Walinsky ed (1977).

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