Rural-Urban Linkages In A Resource Frontier Region : The Case Of Sorong, Irian Jaya, Indonesia

• Main Author: Perpustakaan UGM, i-lib
• Format: Article NonPeerReviewed
• Published: [Yogyakarta] : Universitas Gadjah Mada 2001
• Subjects: Jurnal i-lib UGM
• Online Access: https://repository.ugm.ac.id/22307/; http://i-lib.ugm.ac.id/jurnal/download.php?dataId=5195
• Institution: Universitas Gadjah Mada

ABSTRACT Sarong district is a part the resource frontier areas of Indonesia, located in Irian Jaya Province. The district is endowed with abundant natural resources, comprising oil, forest, lands, fish and other marine resources. But most of these resources remain idle, due to the lack of capable human resources to utilize them. Consequently, the district is strongly depending on food supply from other provinces for many years. Only small portion of the foodstuff is produced locally in the transmigration settlements. This situation is reflecting a great opportunity to initiate agricultural development in the district to satisfy local demands for foodstuffs and at the same time facilitating rural-urban linkages. The research is addressing the following issues: (1). providing an overview of the basis for rural-urban linkages in a resource frontier region of Sarong (2). understanding the existing linkages connecting urban centers and their rural hinterlands and (3). identifying policy implication of the existing patterns and nature of rural-urban linkages in the district. This paper is written on the basis of a research conducted in 1998, combining secondary data analysis, household survey and rapid rural appraisal. A review of secondary materials in forms of regional de-Velopment plans, statistics and reports has been made to give an overview of the basis for rural-urban linkages in the district as well as to describe the existing patterns of rural-urban linkages and to identify their policy implications. Field observation, rapid rural appraisal and household survey have been conducted to facilitate better understanding of various issues related to rural-urban linkages at micro level. There is an ample potential basis for rural-urban in the district under study. The negative balance of production and consumption of staple foodstuffs in one side and the availability of potential lands for food crops in the other shows that there is a sufficient space to adopt a rural-urban linkage strategy. If the existing deficit in food production can be fulfilled by the hinterlands through an appropriate agricultural development strategy, rural-urban. linkages will naturally materialize. In developing the agricultural sector in the district, improvement of the existing road networks is an urgent prerequisite. The seasonal nature of connectivity among various parts of the district gives a substantial disincentive to farmers as it is shown by the great discrepancies between farm gate price and the market price for various agricultural commodities. Under the existing level of skills and knowledge of the local people in farming, the implementation of an agricultural development strategy via transmigration program is the only feasible option. But this should take in to consideration the participation of local population who are culturally not familiar with settled farming as practiced by trans-migrants population. Kata Kunci.: rural-urban linkages - resource frontier - sorong