Village Treasury Land Governance in Kalibeji Village, Kebumen

To learn the pattern of Village Treasury Land Governance in Kebumen, AKATIGA, as well as FORMASI, held a series of assessment activities in 6 villages in Kebumen. One of them is Kalibeji village, Sempor sub-district.

Based on local folklore, the name of Kalibeji comes from “Kali” which means river and “Beji” which means a small lake. That name represents the condition in Kalibeji with some small lakes that becomes one source of water for rice fields in the village.

Kalibeji village consists of 6 RW (Rukun Warga) and 24 RT (Rukun Tetangga). The village administration is filled by 1 village head, 6 village officials and 6 RW (Rukun Warga)/ Dusun. In 2018, the number of population in Kalibeji was 4.229 people, with 939 heads of households (Kepala Keluarga/ KK). 1427 of them were young people (15-29 years old), which contributes 34% of the total population.

The village which is only less than five kilometers from Sempor Reservoir is one of the villages that still maintain agricultural activities.  The area of rice field which is owned by the village is approximately 94 hectares, 40 % of the total area which is more or less 233 Hectares. Meanwhile, the field used for gardening reaches around 23 hectares.

Kalibeji Village’s Treasury Land Management

Kalibeji has 1.000 ubin (14.000 m2) treasury land that was auctioned to 24 heads of RT. The auction was held because of the hard work that has been done by the head of RT, it needs to be awarded by access to the village treasury land, especially for those who don’t have arable land. The auction process is carried out every year in October.

In 2019, the cost of land rent was divided into several classes. They are the 1st class, with IDR. 3.000.000/ 100 ubin, the 2nd class with IDR 2.500.000/ 100 ubin, 3rd class for IDR 1.000.000/ 100 ubin. The classes are distinguished based on the quality of the soil and the location. The price has no difference with those in Kalibeji markets. There is no price discount because all of the rent results will be collected and distributed equally among all heads of RT as their incentives.

Aside from the 1.000 ubin village treasury land, there are also treasury lands that are used for pensionary. The former head of the village gets 600 ubin, the secretary of the village gets 300 ubin, kaur/ kasi/ kadus/ RW head gets 200 ubin. However, the area of 200 ubin that for retired village officials (kaur/ kasi/ kadus/ RW) is rarely used.

When that land village pensionary land not used, this land will be auctioned again. On the year of 2010-2011, this land has ever been used to Karang Taruna’s needs. And also has been used as awards for Hansip (security) or PKK in the way they get money from the rent price of the land.

A chance to rent the village treasury land is an important thing to appreciate the services that have been done by the heads of the RW. Suhadioyanto (61 years old), is the most senior village treasury land’s tenant. He started to rent the village treasury land since 1989 until 2019 (during the assessment). Since he has worked as the head of the RT for 10 years, village official 15 years, and was served again to be the head of the RT for 5 years.

In his daily life to carry out his duties as a village official, Suhadiyanto feels helped by this village treasury land. The land which he manages has 70 ubin large. In one year, he can plant paddy (Oryza Sativa) field twice and palawija (horticulture) once. When it comes to the first planting season, it can produce 7 quintals of paddy, and 5 quintals on the second planting season. In his opinion, even though it is not a lot, those harvests at least make him calm enough for rice stock matters.

Young People and Agriculture

During the village treasury land auction process in Kalibeji village, there has never been one specifically for young people, women and even poor people. However, in years of 2010-2011, the village governance had facilitated Karang Taruna to manage around 200 ubin the village treasury land for rice field. The income from that land will be used to fund the Karang Taruna’s activities.

That land is an unused pensionary quota which has been given to Karang Taruna as a form of incentive for young people’s role in taking care of the village field. However, because many of them were migrated, the use of village treasury land by Karang Taruna was stopped, as well as the young people’s contribution to agriculture.

According to Agus Riyanto, the head of Kalibeji village council (Badan Permusyawaratan Desa), the culture of the migrant worker or searching for jobs outside the village is strong in the village. Aside from migrating to another city, they can even choose to work as a brick craftsman and get involved in the construction sector which is also quite developed around Kalibeji village.

For those who have not migrated, or have come back to their village, the numbers are relatively small. Some of them choose to work in the field of home-based convection, do the orders coming from the convection industry in Gombong sub-district. One of them have innovations to build integrated waste management, which is known as a comparative study from other regions. And the other one develops organic fertilizer businesses, which have been collaborated with BUMDes (Badan Usaha Milik Desa) for the marketing. But it is inversely proportional to those who choose to farm.

That condition raises concerns regarding how to regenerate young farmers in Kalibeji. The previous village government developed several efforts to foster the interest of young people in agriculture. Times ago, the village government sent several young people to participate in millennial farmer’s training at the Dinas Pertanian Kabupaten Kebumen (Kebumen District Agriculture Office). But it hasn’t shown any significant results.

Agus saw the lack of young people’s interest in the agricultural sector is caused by several things. The first is because of the small income in the agricultural sector. Second, no parents expect their children to become farmers. Third, nearly 80% of agricultural land in Kalibeji belongs to the outsiders. Therefore, the residents in Kalibeji have to rent land to farm.

Because of that, the young generation assumes if they have to rent land for farming, they don’t have enough money to do that. Meanwhile, they also know for real that the income is not promising. In this case, land access affects quite big in hampering young people’s participation in the farm. Besides, the low income in the agricultural sector makes young people are increasingly not interested.

Village Land’s Plan Optimization and The Participation of Young People

Capturing the problems that occurred in his village, Adman, the new head of Kalibeji village, see that there has to be a way to optimize the young people’s potential who wanted to farm. He developed some models of alternative agriculture for stimulating young people’s interest in the agricultural sector. That alternative agriculture is aimed for optimizing the village land both crooked and treasury land so that it can be more productive.

Arman brought an agricultural development policy called commodity diversification. He tries to develop Pare (Momordica Charantia) commodity. The reason is because there has been a qualified market for Pare in Gombong Sub-district. But it can be changed based on its commodity. The main point is we have to keep reading the market trends so that we can know when we have to plant commodities whose prices are good.

Adman himself has tried to plant and also sell Pare, and he thought that the result will be good. He used his Tanah Bengkok and made a working-group that consists of 6 village officials. Adman hoped that way can inspire other village officials to optimize the management of Tanah Bengkok.

Meanwhile, the magnitude of Tanah Bengkok’s rights in Kalibeji are: 3500 tiles for the village head, 1500 tiles for the village secretary, an for 11 people Kaur/ Kasi/ Kadus, each of them will have 500 tiles for Tanah Bengkok. According to Adman, a Tanah Bengkok with that large is very potential if it can optimize the young people.

From the trial process that has been done, the income from planting Pare looks better than planting Paddy. Based on that, the village officials want to develop Pare in their field in the future and involving the young people as farmers.

One of them is Agus, the head of Dusun 2. He planned to allocate 50 ubin from his Tanah Bengkok to be partnered with the young people for the management. It came from his personal experience as a former migrant worker, he understands that young people have chances to process the land or even work in the well-income field, seeing the fact that young people want to work in the agricultural sector.

Moreover, regarding the village treasury land, even though it is still used for the head of RT’s incentive, the head of Kalibeji village sees that there are still chances for the future. For example, if half of the village treasury land’s management is given to the young people, the productivity is expected to optimized so that the result can still fulfill the incentive’s need for the head of RT.

Translated by Shania Megarani