Tenant farmers lease plots of sawah from wealthy landowners, often paying with a massive percentage of their actual yield. This creates a cycle of dependency. If a drought or flood hits, the tenant farmer falls into deep debt, binding their family to the landlord for generations. The Rise of the Middleman

In areas like Makkawing Village, Sanggau, farmers utilize a specific system called Royong , a work system based entirely on mutual help. This practice manifests as physical cooperation in the fields and a profound sense of togetherness among the community members. Similarly, in the Mesakada Mamasa region, this takes the form of massaro (paid labor at planting and harvest) and mabbulele (reciprocal work on land clearing and planting), highlighting how cooperation is both a social and economic tool.

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Di Sawah Padi: Relationships and Social Topics in Rural Southeast Asia

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Celebrations after a successful harvest bring the entire village together for feasts, music, and theatre.

Planting and harvesting cannot be done efficiently by a single household. Villagers rotate from one field to another, working collectively without expecting immediate monetary payment.

The introduction of combined harvesters and mechanical tractors has revolutionized efficiency but fractured traditional relationships. A machine can now do in hours what used to take an entire village days to accomplish. Consequently, gotong-royong has largely faded, replaced by commercialized, paid labor. Neighbors interact less, and the deeply rooted social safety nets of the past are weakening. Youth Migration and Generation Gaps

Under the derau system, farmers do not hire external paid labor. Instead, a group of villagers moves from one field to another, working together to complete the harvest for each member of the group.

Younger generations, equipped with higher education, rarely want to endure the grueling physical labor of the rice fields. They prefer urban corporate jobs, leaving the sawah facing a severe labor shortage.

The sawah padi has historically defined familial structures and gender roles, though modernization is rapidly shifting these dynamics.