“We have to stick to a fixed feeding schedule, including during the night and when it rains. It’s demanding work, Prasetyo tells an IPS reporter on a recent visit. Seeing the opportunity, some young local growers have become rich quick. Demand is so high that in the Jakarta area, where most Indramayu catfish is sold, shortages are common. In recent years catfish has become a favorite street food for middle and low-income people in almost all major cities in Indonesia. Twenty-one years later, Prasetyo has 69 pounds in Soge village, Kandanghaur sub-district. That’s why Edy Prasetyo, 46, chose to enter the catfish farming business in 2001. But this farming is vulnerable to incursions from the ocean, including tidal waves. Indramayu farmers started making ponds along the seashore to raise tiger prawns, a popular commodity. Fish farming is a popular choice in the coastal district. But one silver lining of this disruption is that landless growers have begun to find alternative livelihoods without migrating to Jakarta. Global climate change has been disrupting these patterns – of planting, harvesting, and migration. Both men and women migrate to the capital Jakarta, 240 km away, to find temporary jobs, before returning to Indramayu for the harvest. That leaves three to four months as free time for landless farmers. Paddy fields are labor-intensive only during planting season and harvest, which take place three times a year on average. The majority of people in the paddy-dominant district are not land-owning farmers but farm laborers or landless growers. Ironically, Indramayu was one of the five poorest districts in West Java in 2021, according to the BPS report, which also revealed that the Covid-19 pandemic increased the number of poor in Indramayu by 13 percent.Įven before the pandemic, Indramayu was a pocket of poverty in Indonesia. It is also a clear sign that the paddy growing cycle has changed, due to a shift in climate. This is early June, traditionally the start of the harvest, but the plants are still green, indicating that the harvest is still months away. Paddy fields stretch on the right and left as far as the eye can see. What we witness as we drive to the district confirms the rice-dominant economy.
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