Tropentag, October 6 - 8, 2009 in Hamburg "Biophysical and Socio-economic Frame Conditions for the Sustainable Management of Natural Resources"

The Impact of Scarcity of Water and Land Resources on Poverty and Migration in East Java

University of Kassel, Development Economics, Migration and Agriculture Policy, Germany

Abstract

Rapid economic growth in various sectors in East Java puts pressure on land and water resources, resulting in gradual degradation of these resources in particular. Industrial development has frequently sacrificed agricultural land to the construction of factories, roads, housing and other land-based infrastructure.

Due to population pressure on the land and increasing demand for labour force, the population's mobility has changed. People increasingly migrate to marginal agricultural lands or frontiers, to urban areas, and/or to international locations either permanently or as contracted wage labour. Legal systems and lack of government control of land use encourage the sale of farm land which is then used for non agriculture purposes. Therefore, agriculture land has become increasing scarce leaving many smallholders with insufficient land to secure their livelihood. Those who still live as farmers mostly live on subsistence level. Using econometrics analysis, based on secondary data of 7767 villages in East Java Province, surveyed by the Agricultural Census 2005, the paper will examine the impact of the scarcity of land and water on poverty and migration in East Java.

The paper is organised in four sections. The first section presents the problem statement of the research including background information, research questions and hypothesis. The second section highlights the state of research which is relevant to analyse the implication of land use and water resources on poverty and migration. The third section will present the methodology employed for econometric estimation. Conclusions and policy recommendations will be presented in the last chapter as derive from explicit econometric model and contain a discussion of the results and their implications for policy and future research.

Keywords: Land resources, migration, poverty, water

Contact Address: Wildan Syafitri, University of Kassel, Development Economics, Migration and Agriculture Policy, Steinstrasse 19, 37213 Witzenhausen, Germany, e-mail: wildan888yahoo.com