Day 2: Farming Is Hard

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There are several barriers to farming that make the occupation unappealing to young people: 1. Landless farming. Most farmers do not cultivate their own property. Those who do own the piece of land will usually have inherited from their elders, and later to their children. The high price of land makes it impossible for children from a low-income farmers family to own any pieces of land on their own. 2. The pay for very young children who help in harvesting is Rp50.000 ($3.50) per day. These children spend half their day at school. So they can only work the remaining half at the farm. If they do work the entire month, they take home about $35 and with that kind of pay it will take them centuries to afford a hectare of land to farm. 3. Combine harvesters are replacing people anyways. With one mechanical harvester operated by one or two people, we can do the work of 50 manual harvesters. 4. Culture of migration. The way it has been.. young people move out of their homes to work in big cities. They rarely go back and do the menial paying farming jobs. So is farming ever an option to make a good living nowadays? In Indonesia, it might be an option reserved only for the ultra rich. We should appreciate and try to support our farmers as much as possible, but also we need to make sure that our support truly reaches them.