Page 382 - Ranah Studi Agraria: Penguasaan Tanah dan Hubungan Agraris

Agrarian and Nonagrarian Bases ...

The overall similarity of ownership and farm-size distri-
butions in fact goes together with considerable rates of land
transfer through tenancy in the sample villages, two phenome-
na which at first sight appear contradictory. As may be seen in

Table 7.6 (columns 2 and 3), while an overall majority of sa-
wah is operated by its owners, substantial amounts varying
from 17 in Wanarata and Mariuk to around 50 in Kebanggan
and Geneng are operated under some tenancy arrangement;
fixed-rent leasing is predominant in five villages, share tenan-
cy in four, and in only one village (Geneng) are both forms
significant. Further examination of the tenure status of house-
holds (Table 7.7) shows that despite the high proportions of
land held in tenancy and of households involved in some tenan-
cy transaction, many of these tenants are also owners (columns
3-5) so that tenancy transfers do not greatly reduce the pro-
portions of ‘absolute’ landless, with the exception of Sentul
and Geneng (compare columns 6-8 and column 9).
Fixed-rent leasing is quite common in the case of village
officials’ salary lands (sawah bengkok), which are found only
in the six Central and East Java villages; this practice often
reflects the officials’ need for ready cash to repay various debts
and promises incurred in their election campaigns. Real rental

rates have substantially increased between 1971 and 1981 in
all villages (Table 7.6, columns 4-6), although these increases
have generally been lower than the yield and ‘farmer’s share’
increases already seen in Table 7.3. Five different forms of
fixed-rent leasing were found in the sample villages. In three
of them (sewa tahunan, jual oyodan, and jual potongan) rent
is paid in advance and thus limited to prospective tenants who

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