Agriculture

Batak affinities with the forest may be stronger, but one of my most enduring images of the Batak concerns their life as guardians of rice fields, high on isolated mountainsides with commanding views of the jungle and the ocean. There is some intercropping in such fields; corn and sweet potatoes are usually planted, and yams, taros, and bananas may occasionally be found as well. In years past, Batak have also

planted coconuts and other fruit trees in their fallow swiddens. More recently, some have begun to plant coffee. But tree crops are few in number and inadequately cared for, and nowhere are they a significant source of cash income. Finally, Batak own virtually no pigs and few chickens. Thus, rice cultivation is by far the most important agricultural enterprise, and it provides an alternative both to hunting-gathering and to trade and wage labor as a source of subsistence as well as cash income.

Rice fields may be near or far from settlements, in isolated clearings or in large clusters, in low or high fallow second growth, or, if the Batak are so inclined and think they can escape detection by the government, in virgin forest. While comparatively simple in technology and ritual, Batak shifting cultivation otherwise resembles a type widespread in the Philippines and elsewhere in Southeast Asia. Local variants of this type have already been abundantly described (e.g., Freeman 1955; Conklin 1957; and numerous studies inspired by these early works), and I will devote little additional attention here to technological matters.

My most detailed picture of Batak time allocation patterns under agricultural conditions comes, again, from a series of time allocation studies. This time my subjects were the adult members of the household or group of households domiciled together in a single swidden field house. As in the case of forest camps, I visited numerous such field houses during the course of my stay with the Batak. On occasion, I remained for 24 to 48 hours of detailed observation. Table 9 presents pooled time allocation data for four such observation periods at field houses, each period during a different stage in the cycle of rice cultivation. These data, while limited, suggest that in the field, agricultural workdays are on the order of 3.5 to 4.0 hours per working adult—approximately one hour less per day than Batak dwelling in forest camps devote to hunting and gathering (table 6). Other observations support this estimate. In July, I observed a group of women to spend 2.5 hours in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon

weeding a rice field. In October, I observed the members of several households to work together at late harvest labor for approximately 2.5 hours in the morning and 2.0 hours in the afternoon.

On the surface, given that the Batak must also devote some effort each day to domestic activities, this seems like a reasonable amount of effort to devote to agricultural labor. But what do Batak get in return? A complete answer to this question should address the cost of mobilizing field labor, the productivity of that labor once mobilized, and actual farm yields—topics about which I have only fragmentary data. I am convinced, nevertheless, that the returns to land and labor in Batak swiddens are much lower than local lowland swidden farmers realize in the same environment—perhaps as much as 50 percent lower. In the Batak fields I observed at Tanabag during 1971 and 1975, for example, returns to land were on the order of 750 to 1,250 kilograms per hectare. Headland (1986:352), who similarly believes that the Agta are ineffective agriculturalists, reports that yields in the 43 Agta fields he studied in the Casiguran area in 1983 averaged only about 900 kilograms per hectare. Rice yields of this magnitude are low by the standards of most farming peoples in upland Southeast Asia. Spencer (1966:21–22) estimates that upland rice yields in the region as a whole, for “first year cropping of mature forest lands in good years,” range from 1,100 to 2,800 kilograms per hectare. Similar estimates have been made by Freeman (850–2,100 kilograms per hectare [1955:96–99]) and by Conelly (1,600 kilograms per hectare [1983:175]). The returns to labor in Batak rice fields are also comparatively low. Taking account of all labor inputs from field preparation to threshing and storing (but excluding milling), the Batak receive only 2 to 3 kilograms of husked rice per day of labor. By contrast, Cuyonon settlers in the same area receive 4 to 5 kilograms per labor day.

The proximate causes of the desultory state of Batak agriculture are found in an array of poor management practices, scheduling conflicts, social pressures, and cultural values

that not only depress swidden yields and labor productivity but result in a surprising number of cases of out-and-out farming failure. With respect to yields, for example, the Batak tend to make small fields to begin with. Their technological knowledge of upland agriculture is relatively unsophisticated. They plant few rice varieties and engage in little or no intercropping. Such discretionary activities as secondary burning, weeding, and guarding may be ignored or haphazardly pursued; every year monkeys and wild pigs take a heavy toll in Batak rice fields. Even basic activities such as planting and harvesting may be ill-timed or postponed to the extent that the rice crop suffers in consequence.

Inadequate or poorly scheduled labor inputs in Batak agriculture in part simply reflect the exigencies of poverty and the competing demands of a multidimensional subsistence economy. A hungry Batak family may have to leave its maturing rice field untended in July to seek food in the forest, and they may have to leave it unharvested in September while they help a lowland creditor harvest his field. Following a storm at harvest time, when the mature grain is vulnerable to lodging, I have known Batak thus summoned to the lowlands to return to find much of the rice in their own fields blown over or soaking wet.

Other difficulties with labor mobilization extend beyond the economic circumstances of individual households and involve some distinctively Batak customary practices. Consider the reciprocal agricultural labor work parties that many Batak mobilize at planting time. These arrangements are ubiquitous in Southeast Asia; the Batak probably acquired the custom from the Cuyonon at the same time they acquired upland rice farming. Undoubtedly, such work parties are never models of efficiency; people turn to them, in part, precisely because they often are unhurried, socially pleasurable occasions. But according to my observation and in comparison with reciprocal labor groups on neighboring Cuyonon farms, Batak labor groups are particularly unproductive even as the Batak find them quite costly to mobilize.

The cost stems from the fact that Batak reciprocal labor groups are also reciprocal eating groups; both husband and wife typically appear for the noon meal, even though only one may actually be exchanging a labor day. Nonworking spouses help with gathering firewood or cooking, but their numbers are often excessive for these chores. Further, any lowland passersby may also invite themselves to the noon meal. It is not uncommon to learn of a Batak who postponed a previously scheduled field planting because he was unable to borrow the rice necessary to feed those who would attend.

A reciprocal labor party I observed in late February was fairly typical. Seven men, including the man whose field was being planted that day, were involved in the actual exchange of labor days. They departed from the field owner's settlement house at 8:30 A.M. and returned at 11:15 A.M. for the noon meal; they left again at 3:00 P.M. , returning at 5:45 P.M. Since it took them about 15 minutes on foot to reach the field, the labor group spent a total of approximately 4.5 hours actually working, which is consistent with the data reported in table 9. Thirteen adults and two children attended the noon meal, which consisted of rice and boiled greens. In addition, the field owner provided some puffed rice candy and three bottles of gin. Two bottles were consumed after lunch, and the third was taken to the field in the afternoon “so that the work would go faster.” (A lowland settler with a comparably distant field would have his noon meal brought there, both to minimize travel time and to reduce the temptation of his exchange laborers to dally during the midday break.)

Other customary practices that dampen yields and labor productivity become visible at harvest time. For a lowland settler, the crucial measure of farming success is how much rice ends up in his own granary for his family's future use. This is the effective return to his season of agricultural labor, and a good farmer makes every effort to minimize the amount of newly harvested rice that is used to buy goods,

pay debts or laborers, and so on. Among the Batak, such demands dissipate an alarming amount of rice, and what appears to be an abundant harvest in September can result in surprisingly few sacks of stored rice in November. First, as we saw above, there are famine season debts to be paid and goods to be purchased. Second, during the tarakabot, or ritual first harvest, as many as ten individuals may enter a Batak's rice field and harvest for a day, keeping all of the proceeds for themselves. Even after the tarakabot, when any harvesting in another's field is nominally done on a share basis, neighbors and kin expect concessions from the more successful farmers. In ten Batak fields I monitored at Tanabag in 1971, these various harvest time rice allocations accounted for 35 percent of the total harvest and on a number of fields, exceeded 50 percent.

Ironically, even as Batak rice production suffers from inadequate labor inputs during some phases of cultivation, at other times, excessive labor is invested in farming with only limited marginal returns. An illustration of how the exigencies of poverty may lead a farmer to expend extra effort without adding to total output is seen in the Batak practice of tianek making. Tianek is made in July and August, when near-ripe grain not yet ready for harvesting, threshing, and pounding in the normal manner is nevertheless harvested, laboriously threshed using a shell scraper, and then roasted and dried over a fire before it can be pounded and consumed. Rice thus prepared has a delightful nutty flavor and is much favored. But Batak make tianek not because it is tasty but because they are hungry and cannot wait until their grain has fully ripened. One episode of tianek making I observed in early August ultimately yielded about 2 kilograms of husked, ready-to-cook rice. The episode began in the late morning, when two women harvested some near-ripe grain, and continued as other women assisted with the tasks of threshing, roasting, drying, pounding, and winnowing. Excluding mat drying, which took four hours but needed only occasional attention, seven hours of adult labor were necessary for these

tasks. It was almost 8:00 P.M. when the rice was ready to be eaten.

On occasion, the kinds of attitudes, practices, and circumstances that keep rice field returns to land and labor relatively low also result in outright farming failure. Of the twenty-five Batak households who made rice fields at Tanabag during 1975, for example, four ultimately harvested little or no rice. One cleared and planted a field but essentially abandoned it after the husband was summoned to another local group by his mother, whose chronic illness was said to have worsened. She was actually in reasonably good health but prevailed on her son to stay. In a second case, an old man living alone prevailed on his nephew to clear, and on his niece to plant, an isolated field for him. He was to guard the field himself, but most of his time was spent visiting kin in another local group. Very little rice survived to be harvested. Another couple made a field, but, after planting, the wife decided to return to the local group of her birth to be near her brothers. Forced to choose between his field and his wife, the husband chose the latter. A final case of field abandonment occurred as a result of sheer laziness. A man burned and planted his field a month late because, it was said, “he went fishing when others were working [in their fields].” He and his wife planted the field together, but she subsequently refused to cooperate in weeding or guarding, instead spending most of her time at an uncle's house. She was still lonely, it was said, from the death of her father two years before.

What more general explanation can be offered for why the Batak do not farm more successfully? Forest resource depletion and the Batak's own evolving life-style lend some urgency to understanding this failure, for it would seem that even modest improvements in Batak agricultural yields or labor productivity would considerably improve their lives. A frequent explanation is that Negrito peoples such as the Batak do not like to farm. According to this reasoning, Negritos simply prefer to obtain most of the goods they need from the outside world through trade and wage labor rather

than through resorting to such sedentary occupations as farming, and they behave accordingly.

Writing of the Batek, K. M. Endicott (1979a) has argued persuasively along these lines. His argument has considerable intuitive appeal, and versions of it have been applied to Philippine Negrito groups as well (e.g., Headland 1985). Most (Malaysian) Negritos, he says,

intensely dislike agricultural work and will do it only when it is impossible to earn a living any other way. They much prefer collecting and selling rattan to agriculture because it permits them to live in the cool forest, to move around whenever they like, to hunt and fish, and to collect their reward in cash, which they vastly prefer to a yield of food alone…. This preference is widespread among Negritos and is a serious impediment everywhere to attempts to settle them. (P. 184)

According to Endicott, not only do Negritos dislike agricultural work —because of “their preference for the coolness of the forest to the heat of the clearings,” their “intense dislike of … living in one place for an extended period,” and their “avoidance rules between kin which severely limit who may live with whom”—but they also find the house layout and domestic arrangements of Malay-style agricultural villages “almost the exact opposite” of what “they look for in a living place” (ibid.: 184–187). (Similar cultural preferences have been attributed to African Pygmies; see, e.g., Turnbull 1965.)

Applied to the failure of Batak farming, this would be the charitable explanation of the anthropologist. Lowland Filipinos have a less charitable explanation: Batak are lazy. Indeed, Batak are widely portrayed as lazy by lowland Filipinos precisely because of their failure to farm more effectively—that is, they are perceived first and foremost as lazy farmers. My view is that both explanations miss the point. By looking, relativistically or ethnocentrically, at factors presumed intrinsic to the Batak themselves (or Negritos in general), such explanations divert attention from a vital, broader pat-

tern of social and economic relationships. I do not deny that Negritos in general (or the Batak) talk and behave as if they do not like farming work and the farming life-style. But I do question whether these facts are adequately accounted for by the claim that agriculture, as a subsistence adaptation, is simply a “poor fit” with traditional Negrito social organization, culture, or personality. To fully appreciate the motivational patterns in question, we must again look at the wider social and economic context in which the failure to farm effectively occurs. If we are to invoke that context to explain why the Batak and other Negritos have become such inveterate collectors of commercially valuable forest products, surely we must consider it as well in accounting for their failure to move into full-time farming. I believe that the “terms of incorporation” of Batak society into lowland Filipino society do not simply select for trade; they also select against farming.

First, it is important to recognize that specialization and success in one activity precludes, to some degree, success and specialization in another activity. I argued earlier that Peterson (1978) ignored some significant opportunity costs associated with developing and maintaining exchange relationships. Some of these same opportunity costs also figure in Batak farming failure. In particular, the ongoing concern of an individual Batak to stay in the good graces of his lowland patron/creditor/exchange partner leads him, among other things, to accept offers of employment in his patron's swidden field, performing such tasks as clearing or weeding—the same tasks that are extremely important in his own swidden. The fact that during the swidden season Batak may be seen busily laboring in the fields of others while their own fields (or would-be fields) lie unattended is commonly cited by lowlanders as indicative of the kinds of personality shortcomings that explain why the Batak have been unable to improve economically. In fact, however, many Batak are obliged to work in this fashion because they had previously obtained food or another item from their employers which

was to be paid for either in forest products or in agricultural labor. In short, involvement in exchange and labor relationships seriously inhibits the Batak's ability to become more successful farmers, whatever their inclinations may be. Writing of the Tagbanua, Conelly (1985) similarly emphasizes how some of the time spent collecting and selling forest products might alternatively be devoted to clearing larger fields and to more careful maintenance.

More than the opportunity costs of exchange relationships with lowlanders keep Batak from moving into full-time farming, however. I do not think it is unreasonable to argue that lowlanders do not want Batak to move into full-time farming. Conscious motivations along these lines may not exist, but it is important to recognize that particular lowland Filipinos—and the wider socioeconomic system—benefit economically from the present subsistence orientation of many Philippine Negrito groups. Consider that any significant movement by Negritos into full-time farming would (1) increase competition for agricultural land in certain Philippine frontier areas already filled with land-hungry settlers and (2) decrease the number of marginalized individuals available to hire out as agricultural wage laborers or to collect and sell forest products.

Two aspects of the Batak case are relevant here. First, on numerous occasions I have observed lowland settlers, usually those with exchange relationships with Batak, attempt to intimidate the Batak about their allegedly illegal swidden making on forested mountainsides. For example, stories may be told about how a certain government forester, having spotted illegal Batak swiddens from his helicopter, is on his way to make arrests. I have known such efforts to be successful, with the Batak abandoning their swiddens and retreating to the forest for a time. Such behavior, which may occur during any phase of the swidden cycle, obviously undermines agricultural productivity as much as any aversion to working in the heat of the sun. (Ironically, the Bureau of Forest Development is more concerned with the illegal swid-

dens of lowlanders than with those of the Batak.) A similar kind of intimidation was reported by change agents working with the Batak. Employees of World Vision, for example, found that their efforts to assist Batak at Tanabag and Buayan to become more self-sufficient were resented or even actively opposed by local lowlanders who had commercial dealings with them.

Second, from a historical perspective, arriving Filipino settlers did not simply displace the Batak from part of their aboriginal territory and then use that land for agriculture; they preempted land on which the Batak had already made agricultural improvements. The five Batak reservations established in 1930 were all partially planted in bananas and coconuts by the time they were overrun by lowlanders. Batak remember this experience bitterly. A similar pattern continues today. At Caramay, for example, Batak complain that forestland they clear for agriculture purposes is subsequently encroached on by lowlanders, who plant tree crops, declare the land their own, and pay the necessary taxes to the Bureau of Lands. In my opinion, the fear that unimproved or improved land could similarly be taken in the future together with continued uncertainty about their land tenure status generally are major factors explaining why the Batak have made only tentative efforts to develop their agricultural economy by planting such high value and easily transportable tree crops as coffee and cashews.

In short, there is more to the story of desultory Batak farming than “Batak don't like to farm.” The pressures and opportunities of an external social system have a powerful influence on all aspects of Batak behavior. Just as Batak do collect and sell certain forest resources because an external economy needs them to do so, they do not become full-time farmers because that same economy does not need them to—indeed, it does not want them to. Success in trade and failure in farming are two sides of the same coin—not that of the likes and dislikes of Negritos but that of the pressures and requirements of a wider social system. In such circum-

stances, it should not be surprising that people like the Batak might attempt to make the best of their difficult situation by surrounding their inability to farm effectively with talk of how they do not like farming anyway.

I have argued here that the Batak's seemingly “flexible” subsistence system is uniquely responsive to the pressures and demands of outside peoples and social systems rather than to their own needs. In particular, the constraints posed by land insecurity and a considerable degree of clientage lead to significant inefficiencies in the practice of hunting-gathering, trade, and agriculture, making the typical Batak the peripatetic jack of all trades, master of none.

I fear that a new romanticism has come to influence analyses of hunting-gathering populations: the old romanticism about “pure hunter-gatherers” has given way to a new but equally naive glorification of “generalized foraging,” “exchange,” and “multidimensional subsistence strategies” as those activities which comprise the life of the sensible and well-adjusted modern hunter-gatherer. It certainly seems odd that anthropologists who work with agricultural peoples continually emphasize the importance of greater attention to subsistence production and the nutritional, socioeconomic, and other dangers of cash cropping (i.e., specialized production for exchange), yet anthropologists who work with hunting-gathering populations, at least in Southeast Asia, have not voiced a similar concern. We should be more attuned to the possibility that what a particular foraging people may be doing at the moment may not in fact be in their own best interests, however difficult it may be to define those interests. In the next two chapters, I attempt such a definition for the Batak.