Agriculture in Atjeh — the rice of the Pidië federations and of the sawahs of Groot-Atjeh, the pepper, pinang, coffee and coconut of the landscapes, and the cattle, horses and garden crops of the villages — was at once the chief subsistence of the Atjehnese people and the object of the colonial government’s most persistent improvement policy, from the first advances of 1877 to the agricultural advisers, irrigation works, credit advances and demonstration crops of Governors Van Daalen, Swart and Van Sluys.
The stock of crops
The first official economic survey (ordered in 1893) counted a fairly great variety of crops beside the staples: pinang and rice; maize, millet (gierst), several kinds of tubers, diverse varieties of pulse, cucumbers, Spanish pepper, onions etc.; pepper and tobacco, though only for provincial use; cotton, though only in small quantity; kapok, indigo, sugar-cane (“zeer goed suikerhoudend” — very good sugar-holding), coconuts, nutmeg, and coffee “waarvan de cultuur nog onbeduidend was” (“of which the culture was still insignificant”). Of these cultures, only pepper could then be regarded as a real volkscultuur (“people’s culture”); the women’s industry (silk weaving, plaiting), some earthenware, shipbuilding on Poelò Breuëh and Simaloer, gold-washing (little result), native petroleum-drawing at Peureula, and the prosperous sea-fishery — which even then did not cover demand, salt and dried fish being imported (over f 30,000 in 1890) — completed the picture. The rice import of 1890 weighed f 144,178, indicating insufficient production in several regions, though ample building-land lay available both in Groot-Atjeh and in the Dependencies.
Rice
Rice cultivation was the recurring thermometer of the pacification: it perished outside the line under the Concentration; extended steadily within the line in the early 1890s (the government importing rice from the Straits for the riceless East Coast, and later allowing transport of rice from outside to inside the line when prices there exceeded); revived with the re-tilling of long-abandoned sawahs in 1898; and was driven forward by the new regulated pepper duties, by the buffalo- (plough-cattle-)advances on the North Coast, by the improvements of tillage (Sundanese demonstrating the deeper Javanese ploughing with Hindustan ploughs, 1905–1907), by the introduction of second crops and of strong Minahassa maize-seed (djagoeng) and the potato (in the Gajo lands), and by the great waterworks — water-leadings, extension of wetted acreage, and the diking of the lower courses of the Peusangan and Djambo Ajé rivers under Swart. In 1922 the import of rice had shrunk to a minimum, and the c. 4,000 troops could be fed with rice bought from the population (N. van Zalinge’s report).
Gardens and small cultures
The garden cultures were promoted by interest-free advances from the road fund (wegenfonds) for the laying-out or extension of pepper and coconut gardens — “waardoor tevens getracht werd de bevolking te verlossen uit de handen van de woekeraars, die het gewas ver beneden de waarde door het verstrekken van voorschotten opkochten” (“whereby it was also tried to free the population from the hands of the usurers, who bought the crop far below value through advances”); by the free distribution of thousands of young Ficus elastica plants and of good seeds and grass-sods; and by the experiments with goeramé- and other table-fish for village ponds, salt-pans and fish-ponds. Pinang (betel-nut) was beside pepper the people’s chief cash-crop: the culture bloomed steadily through 1918–1921 and the export grew after 1919 (see Van Sluys and N. van Zalinge). Copra — exported at 6 million kg in 1919, 4 million kg in 1920 — was never raised to a real people’s culture despite Swart’s efforts (“het onderhoud door de bevolking liet toch steeds veel te wenschen over”); lower copra prices turned the people to the preparation of oil, in which a small co-operative distillery at Tapa Toean (founded with the support of Governor Van Sluys and the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij) and the Atjehsche Handelmaatschappij’s kapok-press (over 300,000 kg through the Tapa Toean press) took their part. Patchouli (tilem) spread on the West Coast; kapok completed the smallholder export crops.
European enterprise and experiments
European agriculture — trials of Deli tobacco companies on fallow grounds in the XXVI Moekims and in the Indrapoerische under Van Heutsz, virtually all later trials and the tobacco- and coconut-cultivation in Groot-Atjeh given up — found its base only at the southern border estates: the agricultural concessions issued numbered 16,700 hectares (a few) in 1907 and 141 in 1918 (68 in exploitation), with the government’s own caoutchouc enterprise at Langsa/Langsar as model (see Langsar, Foreign capital in Atjeh, Handelsvereeniging Amsterdam). A plough-demonstration with a Fordson tractor was given at Peureula (photograph).
Cattle and horses
Swart’s administration fostered stock-breeding: selection of breeding cattle with the accompanying castration proceeded from 1911 under the government veterinary surgeon and his veemantris; weekly cattle markets were opened first in Groot-Atjeh and later in the Dependencies; once the cattle-stock had regained significance, thousands of oxen were exported yearly from Groot-Atjeh and the North Coast to Sumatra’s East Coast, while buffaloes went from the West Coast — with, in 1922, cattle prices rising by 100% and more, the slaughter-cattle delivery to the East Coast becoming very lucrative. Want of plough-cattle was relieved by government advances (North Coast). The original horse-breed (Gajo-paard, the Gayo pony) had long declined; the crossings with Sandelhout stallions and Australian breeding-mares achieved little, and a trial with a selected Batak stallion was begun; the Merino-sheep experiment in the highlands was abandoned in 1918. The old enemies of animal husbandry — cattle-disease among imported buffaloes and, in 1891, the doubling of day-wages for want of experienced hands — are recorded in the earlier surveys.
See Also
- Pepper cultivation and trade in Atjeh
- People’s credit in Atjeh
- H. N. A. Swart
- G. C. E. van Daalen
- Groot-Atjeh
- Pidië
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 39–40, 64–66, 75, 89–93, 98, 104–107, 117, 120–121, 126–127, 135.