Program

Palm oil is one of the agricultural commodity that experienced a very rapid growth in Indonesia during the last two decades or so. Palm oil plantations are found almost everywhere, especially outside Java Island, such as Sumatra and Kalimantan. Mukomuko District in Bengkulu Province is not an exception of this trend. In Mukumuko, even irrigated rice field was converted to palm oil plantation. However, an interesting phenomenon is found here, that is some of palm oil plantations in the former irrigated rice field have been re-converted to rice field again. This is a cyclical conversion process. The dynamic of this agricultural practices is analyzed from a sociological perspective that I called "Structugency". In this perspective, agent's action is seen as influenced by both structure and agency. In terms of agents, the expansion of palm oil plantation in Mukomuko is done both "from above" and "from below". "From above", the expansion was carried out by big enterprises. In 2015 for example, there were 53 big palm oil private enterprises in Bengkulu, and 21 of them were in Mukomuko (11 foreign investment and 10 national investment). "From below" expansion was done by many individual agents, such as migrants, local farmers, and civil servants. Meanwhile, structural factors such as global and local markets, government policy, social network, infrastructure, palm oil processing factory, agro-climate, etc. play important role in enabling or constraining the development of palm oil as well as rice production or the dynamic of agricultural practices.