Indonesia remains a rural country. With 45% of the population living in the countryside (approx. 123 million), Indonesia has the fourth-largest rural population in the global south. Agriculture is the lead sector in 20 of 34 provinces. Rural Indonesia is changing fast, with land reform and village government reforms, rapid migration to the city and overseas, and COVID-19 impacting rural life. While many people have moved above the poverty line over recent decades, rural people face the imminent threats of vulnerability, food security, stunting and climate change, with a large proportion still living below $2/day. Despite the importance of rural life to Indonesia and its region, scholarship has tended to overlook rural Indonesia.

The Indonesia Institute will hold a panel discussion to commemorate Hari Tani and Indonesian independence day in August 2022 and consider the need to rejuvenate research on rural Indonesia. We have asked critical Indonesian thinkers to reflect on a simple question: What is the most important policy problems facing rural Indonesia, and what can researchers do about them? Each presenter will speak for 10 minutes, making a few critical points about their issue, and then we open the floor for discussion.

Panel:

1. Land Reform: Noer Fauzi Rachman
2. Food security in rural Indonesia: Sirojuddin Arif, SMERU
3. Village Governance: Lian Gogali
4. Rural  migration: Suraya Affif

Please find a recording of this seminar here.