Page 20 - Ranah Studi Agraria: Penguasaan Tanah dan Hubungan Agraris

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which had no rice-fields (averaging, in the sample villages,
more than 40 percent in West Java, 27 percent in Central Java
and 50 percent in East Java), and the large numbers of both
landless and near-landless who depended on agricultural wages

for part of their incomes (AES 1972; Collier and Sajogyo
1972b). From this point onwards the SAE combined its sur-
veys on production and marketing problems with a consis-
tent interest in the impact of smallholder intensification on
agricultural employment and labour relations.
The SAE’s first report on employment impacts had been
rather optimistic, noting that nearly all the sample farmers
used hired labour as well as family labour and that those using
the HYV’s used about 50 more person-days of hired labour
per hectare than those using local varieties. Collier and Sajogyo
concluded:

“If the IR and Pelita varieties are adopted on a majority of the
rice farms in irrigated areas on Java, the employment of
hired labour will definitely increase, maybe even attracting
people who have migrated to the cities” (Collier and Sajogyo
1972a: 8).

In another report from the same period, however, the same
authors were less optimistic, concluding that

“Because […] holdings are very small at the present time and
large numbers depend already on income from hired labour,
a further reduction in farm size and an increase in numbers
of farm labourers in the future will mean widespread rural
unemployment in the next 10 to 20 years. The high yielding
rice varieties will be able to alleviate this unemployment
only to a small extent because of the relatively small increase
in employment” (Collier and Sajogyo 1972b:42).

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