Paditeelt

Paditeelt (rice cultivation) was the great volksbedrijf of Atjeh, practiced on blang large rice fields rain-dependent or irrigated sawahs, with ladang slash-burn and tegal fields, characterized by low yields and poor storage.

System per Broersma

Large area rice lands but yield on unit low lower than Java average and rice such that labourers Java as contractors serving Sumatra not want eat. Surplus not marketable outside Atjeh. Long years deficit so import large amounts: 1904-1915 import 6 million kg min to more than 13 million kg max per Atjeh publication Encyclopedisch Bureau. Year report landbouwleeraar Koeta Radja 1920-1921: import 1917 15k ton, 10k ton 1918, 5k ton 1919, 1920 no import but export 2k ton, 1921 export 2500 ton value uncertain origin missing.

Difficult obtain padi figures; bestuur and inland heads themselves declare. Search average yield per unity in vain. Official dept Landbouw in Atjeh for instruction needed first data but research not easy especially when bestuur inclined introduce try news. After 1918 bestuur adopted other conception wanting limit interference give population rest recover. Now people well on story time also tackle interference main income sources bigger.

Ground processing same time whole region same moment? Atjeher chooses per stars but regulates per rainfall. General April-May small rainy time October-November large rainy time breakthrough depends circumstances small or large rainy time choose beginning padi harvest year. Same afdeeling occurs groundwork April-May elsewhere Oct-Nov Idi June harvest groundwork October. Best rice region Pidie per bestuur October-November leads cleaning irrigation. Ploughed once then bibit fields ordered then again 4-5 times thorough. Elsewhere Pidie grounds open April-May due bandjir fear small rainy time choose not arbitrary but deliberation experience. Groot-Atjeh 25 moekims grounds open May-June stars? Best heads explanation farmer likes ready harvest before plague caterpillars walang sangit. Difference month. Bibit ready 44 days end July transplant What 44 days breeding people read special meaning faith superstition certainly but Pidie bibit after 40 days transplant maybe spiritual but author suspects Atjeher looks plant decides strong enough.

Groot-Atjeh ground processing far insufficient 25 moekims once twice ploughed with cattle buffalo while 3-4 times needed open grounds. Some first care bibit and only when bibit rises ground quickly open quickly but insufficient. Besides breeding beds knows Atjeher also sowing on field His way taboe not scattering throwing before himself Compared transplanting bibit advantages disadvantages: saving time no need breeding beds 40-44 days waiting costs transplant omitted padi ripens sooner. Farmer dries seedpadi sun soaks water let brood between banana leaves promote germination. Disadvantage necessity more maintenance weeding than bibit and yield smaller using 1/4 more seedpadi When use bibit and when taboe? If can count water either rain or irrigation will work bibit. Seedlings drought would give backward halms worse Plant from seed longer resistant drought. Pidie much irrigation therefore little taboe form. But where dependent rain shall apply taboe Atjeh overall no big yearly rainfall west coast considerable but north coast approx 1600 mm east coast south larger not more 2100-2200 mm Atjeher must economize rain Irrigation where flat roof convenient gladly applies But due nearness mountain plain irrigation not everywhere easy useful construction careful Maybe building wadoeks end above weir some rivers regulating too fast water promotion irrigation as rescue not enough.

Duration ripening depends variety Atjeh varieties slow fast etc In Keureutoe ripening 4-6 months Peusangan 5-6 months but fields sort 4 months more than 6 months Groot-Atjeh occurs with rawah including breeding 10 months counted Owner with rawah fields starts those fields bibit ready then groundwork other fields sawahs 6 months yield Mountain slopes ladang 4 months finish Certainly Atjeher reason choice seedpadi though reasons perhaps not fully correct Will also account harvesting method processing harvest Processing threshing treading cut halms spread mat field till gabah loosens ears treading bare feet painful when ears spiky Must with circumstances count choice seedpadi Unfortunately also certain Atjeher uses inferior rice producing sorts Fact Atjeh rice Atjeh likes Atjeh and suspect only Atjeher many farmer himself rather foreign rice eats when obtainable Product thus no trade article Hangs together habit padi not store as Java in bundles padi but stores unhulled grain gabah subject decay Krintji mountain area Djambi people store padi tens years saw rice hundred year old padi Krintji good But Atjeh cannot store gabah year good and keep Stamping gabah also faulty causing much break Atjeh as rice land one big imperfection Can change?

Measurements yield

Atjeher calculates not baoe but: 1 naleh bibit brings … goentja padi; says have … naleh ground therewith indicates surface that with one naleh bibit can be planted Transfer Atjeh surface measure regarding padi into common measures baoe hectare difficulty If ask Atjeher yield per baoe doesn’t know. Pidie supervisor BOW measurements conclude naleh bibit amount for 1600 sq meter. Naleh brings on good grounds 3 goentja padi. 1 goentja 10 naleh, 1 naleh 16 bamboe, 1 bamboe 2.5 katti, wherefrom yield on 1600 sq meter good ground Pidie 3x10x16x2.5 katti =12 picol thus 52.5 picol per baoe padi. Whether wet or dry padi cannot say Is dry padi yields ~26 picol rice is wet padi then 21 picol rice On best sawahs best rice stretch thus 52 (or 42?) picol dry padi yield good harvest.

Peusangan heads calculated yield rain-dependent grounds 31 picol dry padi landscape Keureutoe 20 picol dry. Author with heads calculations some clues yields per baoe vs Java believes average lower than Java ~20 picol.

Second crops after padi few in Pidie on good sawahs yes Peusangan plants djagoeng between padi.

Improvement proposals

Broersma proposes appointment truly expert padi cultivation with college capable heads survey state overview needed achievable. Once so far proceed education native planters via countrymen also must come Inland instruction under supervision cooperation folk heads. Without kampong people not get thorough ground working start wisdom Without hassle quickly executable after first use suitable proven seed padi from harvest quantity separated stored kampong loemboeng as material next planting Why not owners grounds in kampong who actually already united in blang also seed united store per art?

If simple start with easy changes they prove improvements population recognize appreciate trust get new measures improvement Better aim inside out with small improvements gradually bigger.

Some interest shown rice cultivation Atjeh i.e., see volks agriculture higher bloom First gewestelijk bestuur likes welfare increase big factor consolidation rest Atjeher must earn money likes that But … etc.

There is small treatise published from Atjeh Instituut titled De rijkdom van Atjeh. That richness sees writing in rice cultivation gewest if develops Forms future image offers bestuur gewest states also Oostkust van Sumatra not indifferent economic happening Atjeh and wishes help Must consider treatise preparation later other communications follow Communications? Would Atjeh-Instituut not person as mediator want can indicate between Atjeh and East Sumatra interests? Whereabout if once nothing happens? What there recommended good: 1 suitable padi sorts indicate; 2 opportunities open dehulling; 3 organization create product each moment against market price sell Question but how to all that many belonging comes Treatise also points heads indispensable coworkers Believe Atjeh-Instituut still must indicate how thinks big work improvement padi cultivation to begin Maybe wants consider whether way indicated leads goal: appointment truly expert padi cultivation with college capable heads survey state overview what each region needed; next indicate how simplest quick improvements apply to further build; instruction planters via suitable countrymen cooperation heads.

Account from Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (D. W. N. de Boer, 1931) — the measures of seed and the assessment of land

D. W. N. de Boer set out the Atjehnese system of measurement in explaining the rent for good sawah’s in the landschap Keumangan (onderafdeeling Sigli), which amounted to two goentja of padi per naleh of bidjeh (seed rice).

The scale of capacity

one goentja
one naleh = one-tenth of a goentja
one gantang = one-eighth of a naleh
one areh = one-half of a gantang

so that one goentja equalled ten naleh, eighty gantang and one hundred and sixty areh.

Seed as a measure of area

The size of a rice field in Atjeh was not stated in surface measure but “door de hoeveelheid bibit (= zaadpadi) die men gemiddeld voor de beplanting daarvan noodig heeft” — by the quantity of seed padi needed on average to plant it, or estimated to be needed. With one naleh about 1,600 square metres were planted. The yield of good sawah’s averaged fifty times, and of poor fields fifteen times, the quantity of seed. On that basis De Boer reckoned the Keumangan lease at about two-fifths of the normally budgeted return.

The measures in the levies and contracts

The same units governed the customary charges and contracts of the soil. The boeët oemòng — the Atjehnese land rent on wet rice fields within the gampong boundaries — was assessed at one naleh of padi per naleh of bidjeh, roughly two to three per cent of the yield. The padi lintjah on dry fields was two naleh of padi per hippaang padi, the area cleared by one person with a single parang (chopping knife). Under the thiplah-tano contract, rice-field land was granted to a non-indigenous immigrant only if he undertook to work at least five naleh of bidjeh, about 8,000 square metres or 0.8 hectare. The padé kandoeri delivered yearly in recognition of another’s possessory right was one naleh of padi. And the advance made to a pepper planter under the pangkaj system normally included two goentja of padi.

Rice cultivation in Groot-Atjeh and the eye survey of 1937

Dr. C. E. Gomperts’s eye survey of 1937 records the conditions of paddi cultivation in Groot-Atjeh as evidence bearing on the causes of xerophthalmie.

“Aangezien er geen kunstmatige bevloeiing der sawahvelden in Groot-Atjeh bestaat en men dus afhankelijk is van regenval” — since no artificial irrigation of the sawah fields existed in Groot-Atjeh and one was therefore dependent on rainfall — the long-continued drought of 1936 and 1937 caused the paddi planting to fail nearly everywhere. The exceptions were VI Moekims Lhong and Moekim Lam-Teuba, where the sawah irrigation was fed by mountain streams that supplied enough water even in the dry seasons; in Lam-Teuba the planting and harvest took place twice a year, in the rest of Groot-Atjeh only once. In V Moekims Montassie a walangsangit plague was added to the drought, producing in some moekims an almost complete crop failure.

Gomperts also recorded the dietary consequence: “de basisvoeding van de Atjehsche kampongbevolking bestaat uit rijst,” the supplementing of that basic food with vegetables and meat being very sparse, so that the population suffered a chronic shortage of vitamin A. It was to remedy this that his final recommendation urged the stimulation of erfbouw — yard cultivation — of vitamin-A-rich crops, with instruction from the Landbouwdienst.

Source

Atjeh als land voor handel en bedrijf, by Dr. R. Broersma, Gebrs. Cohen, Utrecht, 1925, pp. 99-115.

Het recht op den grond in Atjeh (“The Right to the Soil in Atjeh”), by D. W. N. de Boer, dated Scheveningen, November 1931, pp. 59-80. Offprint DLP-141, Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, ‘s-Gravenhage; Bibliotheek KITLV accession 0060 4460 60 081470 428.

Oriënteerend oogheelkundig onderzoek bij de Atjehsche bevolking van Groot-Atjeh gedurende 1937 (“Orienting Ophthalmological Survey among the Atjehnese Population of Groot-Atjeh during 1937”), by Dr. C. E. Gomperts, offprint from the Geneeskundig Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch-Indië, Afl. 19, Deel 80 (1940), pp. 1191-1238 (Batavia-Centrum: G. Kolff & Co.). Received by the editors 25 October 1939. Offprint DLP-157, Bibliotheek KITLV.

tags	concept, agriculture, rice, economic, atjeh, measurement, land-law, 1937, groot-atjeh, medicine, nutrition
aliases	Padi culture Atjeh, Blang, Sawah, Naleh, Bamboe rice, Goentja, gantang, areh, bidjeh, bibit, Atjehnese measures of seed rice, paddi-aanplant, paddi

Explorer