The Familie Veenhuizen — a father with three sons — settled a few years before Broersma’s visit at kilometre 98 of the Gajo-weg, between Lampahan and Takengon, on a paja of twenty-five bouw which they called Paja Toempi. The site lies at the foot of a mountain-slope, down which the washed-down soil comes as a welcome addition to the garden; but water is largely lacking, which is unfavourable for market-gardening.
The Paja Toempi Enterprise
The family began in 1921 with the cultivation of potatoes alongside various vegetables. Disease appeared in the potatoes, but the Dutch seed-potatoes, imported with difficulty, held up well. The market for the produce is in Atjeh itself: the family brings its fruit and vegetables by lorry to Bireuen — a journey of five to six hours — and there loads them into the Atjeh-tram. Lorry-transport takes five to six hours, the tram-journey usually another day, so that the deliveries cannot consist of leaf-greens, which would wilt, but of beets, turnips, cabbage, peas, carrots and aubergines. The market is thus restricted and lies at a considerable distance. Potato-cultivation might find a wider market, but the small enterprise is not in a position to undertake large deliveries.
The family expects soon to receive three hundred bouw of forest-ground at kilometres 95 and 96 of the Gajo-weg, and intends to plant coffee there. The Gajos in this region also grow vegetables and coffee, and at Takengon itself the inland administration has begun a garden under more favourable conditions than those of Paja Toempi, from which it tries to supply the needs of the bivouac and of the few Europeans there.
Significance
The Veenhuizen family’s Paja Toempi is one of the earliest European planting-enterprises in the Gajo interior, and is the type of the small highland garden — potatoes, vegetables, and a little coffee — which the colonial government hoped would multiply along the Gajo-weg. The enterprise demonstrates both the possibilities and the limits of highland cultivation in the Gajo country: the soil is good, but transport-costs are high and the market is small.
See Also
Source
Verkenningen in Atjeh, by Dr. R. Broersma (De Locomotief, October 1923), chapter XI, ‘De Gajo-weg en zijn landschap’, pp. 77–78.