Farming Without a Livelihood: Structural Differentiation and Household Income Among Paddy Farmers in West Java, Indonesia

Abstract

Smallholder farming across the Global South increasingly fails to provide a full livelihood. West Java, Indonesia, shows the paradox sharply since paddy farming there is financially viable yet insufficient to live on for most who practise it. Using a survey of 1037 households in four regencies and a structure and agency framework, this study asks how inherited conditions of land and water separate farm performance from household livelihood. Paddy farming returns more than it costs in every size class, with a revenue-to-cost ratio rising from 1.65 to 1.93, while cost per hectare does not differ significantly by farm size. Profitability nonetheless fails to become sufficiency. Annual income covers 79% of household expenditure on small holdings against 153% on large ones, and 61% of small and 48% of medium farms fall short of their own needs. The disadvantage concentrates below 0.3 hectares, where returns approach break-even. Farmer-group membership and access to technical knowledge do not vary with farm size, so what differs is not whether farmers act but what their actions can reach. When farming no longer reproduces the household, in what sense does the farming population remain a population of farmers?