Small farmers bring Jakarta urban agriculture to life

In Jakarta's urbanized society, a handful of small-scale farmers have been turning idle spaces into productive cultivation sites, contributing to much-needed green space where land is at a premium.

One of these farmers is Hasanuddin, 62, who turned a 200-square-meter space beneath an elevated toll road in Duren Sawit, East Jakarta, into a small outdoor garden, where he has been planting several food crops since 2021.

Spanning at least 1 kilometer, he grows a collection of tubers, vegetables and fruit plants, such as lettuce, sweet potato, papaya and melon.

"Last time we had harvest season, we yielded almost 50 kilograms of sweet potatoes and sold them in the market," Hasanuddin said.

He added that he answered the call from the city administration, urging local residents to jointly manage idle plots of land across the city. However, only a handful initially showed up.

The Jakarta administration designated an idle area under a part of the crowded toll road in East Jakarta as an urban farming site. Such a move allows surrounding residents to cultivate small-scale production of fruits and vegetables to source food locally, while expanding green coverage in the city.

Urban farming refers to small-scale agriculture performed in city areas, which often involves growing plants in the ground of former dead spaces or using special cultivation methods, such as hydroponics and vertical farming.

In September, the East Jakarta municipality hosted a harvest festival, producing over 427 kg of melons from urban farming sites. The festival is held every two or three months in six municipalities across the capital to celebrate urban food production by ever-fading agricultural communities.

The latest festival took place in South Jakarta on Nov 7, yielding almost 5 metric tons of vegetables and corn.

"Although Jakarta has a high (population) density and is exceptionally crowded, the city has urban farms and this needs to be continued," Jakarta Governor Pramono Anung said during the harvest festival in Pesanggrahan, South Jakarta.

South Jakarta Mayor M. Anwar also applauded the record, saying it was part of efforts to strengthen urban food security and engage the public in agricultural activities.

More people needed

According to Statistics Indonesia, Jakarta was among the provinces in Indonesia that produced the least rice and secondary crops, such as fruits and vegetables, over the last decade. The trend was widely attributed to limited land availability and a declining number of farming households.

Achieving urban food security, especially in major cities like Jakarta, requires a long pathway and sustained effort. Urban farming is designed to supply food to surrounding areas to achieve food security, rather than merely growing plants in idle zones, according to agricultural expert Dwi Andreas Santosa of IPB University in Indonesia.

"It should have been first done by prioritizing food crops that have high market value to attract more customers and bring profit to the urban farmers, so it could encourage more participation from the public," Dwi said.

If not well articulated, he added, the urban farming initiative risks being unmanageable in the long term, making "the formerly dead spaces become dead again".

Such concerns were echoed by Fathrurozih, an urban farmer who manages several plots of farming land under the Becakayu toll road.

He has been cultivating the land since 2022, producing roughly 100 kg of melons and lettuce every three months. His monthly income as a city-employed sanitary worker comes from cleaning the area and managing the urban farming land.

However, the city administration sold produce way below the market price, making his efforts somewhat "less appreciated".

"I don't think other residents would be willing to engage in urban farming," he said, "if there were no profits offered."

The Jakarta Post, Indonesia