SEDAKA, 1967-1979 • 91

RICH AND POOR

Glaring inequalities were an integral feature of economic life in Sedaka befOre double-cropping. They remain so today. They are apparent from the most casual visual evidence of clothing, housing, fOod, furniture, kitchen or farm equipment, radios and, in a few cases now, television sets. They are, on closer inspection, produced and maintained by equally glaring disparities in the distribution of land ownership, of farm size, and hence of income.

Incomes in Sedaka were highly skewed in 1978-79. Despite the fact that there are no comparable figures fur 1967, what we do know about land and farm-size distribution then suggests inequalities of a similar magnitude at the very least. The present situation can be seen from table 4.1, which reports net income fur each household in the village, together with rice land owned and operated and the dominant occupation of the head of household. Families are ranked from poorest to richest on the basis of income per capita in the household. Readers may find it helpful to refer to this listing when they wish to identify the income, tenure status, major source of household income, party affiliation, and so forth of families who will appear and reappear throughout the text.

Using the standard government procedures to calculate per capita income-- by which children and adults are counted equally-a total of forty households, or 54 percent, ofvillage families would fall below the official poverty-line income of $572 per capita per year. A less stringent formula, employed in table 4.1, which counts infants below age six as only one-third of an adult equivalent and children aged six through twelve as two-thirds, places twenty-two households, or 30 percent, ofSedaka's families below the poverty line. It is fur these twentytwo families and the eight or ten families who have incomes just above the poverty line that the problems of fuod and daily necessities take their most severe furm. For these families, an illness of a working adult, a poor yield, a decline in harvest work, an increase in rents, or the withdrawal of a tenancy can easily spell disaster. Their income contrasts starkly with that of the best-off twentytwo families in the village. The poorest twenty-two households have an average net annual income ofM$2,291 while the richest twenty-two households earn an average of M$6,044. The contrast is more pronounced if we consider per capita

basic economic data on landholding, tenure, and social organization. Although his stay was briefer than mine and his interests necessarily more limited, his research provided me with invaluable base-line data from which to draw inferences about the effects of double-cropping. Many of the historical comparisons that fOllow are based on the infOrmation he has generously supplied. The two most important published reports in English drawing on these data are Kanzo Horii, "The Land Tenure System of Malay Padi Farmers: A Case Study ... in the State ofKedah," Developing Economies

10, no. 1 (1972): 45-73, and Rice Economy and Land Tenure in West Malaysia: A Comparative Study of Eight Villages. I.D.E. Occasional Papers Series No. 18 (Tokyo: Institute of Developing Economics, 1981).

TABLE 4.1 • Village Data by Households-Identified by Household Head and Ranked from Poorest to Richest according to Per Capita Annual Net Income

				Paddy Area	Paddy Area	Status
		Net Income	Net	Ownedb	Worked	by Major	Political	Membership
		Per Capita	Household	(Relong)	(Relong)	Source of	Party	in Farmers'
		(Adjusted)	Income"	1979	1979	Income	Affiliationc	Association
1	Razak	186	747	.25	0	laborer	UMNO	No
2	Wahid	392	1,960	0	6	tenant	UMNO	No
3	Salleh	406	2,314	1.50	5.50	tenant	PAS	No
4	Taib	413	2,063	1.25	1.25	laborer	PAS	No
5	Sukur	421	2,108	.25	.25	laborer	PAS	No
6	Mat "halus"	426	1,960	0	0	laborer	PAS	No
7	Bakri bin Haji Wahab	453	2,992	0	4.00	tenant	UMNO	No
8	Hamzah	474	2,986	2	0	laborer	PAS	No
9	Mansur	479	1,580	0	0	laborer	UMNO	No
10	Karim	480	2,218	0	2	laborer	UMNO	No
11	Pak Yah	484	3,870	0	0	laborer	PAS	No
12	Mat Sarif	485	3,190	0	3	tenant	UMNO	No
13	Midon	497	1,640	0	0	laborer	PAS	No
14	Dullah	498	2,990	0	1.50	laborer	PAS	No
15	Hasnah	520	2,081	1. 75	1.25	laborer	PAS	No
16	Tok Baba	526	2,366	10	4	owner	UMNO	No
17	Samad	539	3,236	0	8	tenant	UMNO	No
18	Rustam	544	3,429	1	2	owner	PAS	No
19	Sha'ari	548	1,260	0	.75	tenant	PAS	No
20	Salmah	560	1,120	1.25	1.25	laborer	PAS	No
21	Tok Zainah	562	1,124	2.50	1	owner	UMNO	No
22	Zin	566	3,170	.75	0	pensioner	PAS	No
23	Tok Radzi	583	3,846	0	5	tenant	PAS	No

24	Cik Puteh	614	2,826	2	4	owner	UMNO	No
25	Ishak	614	2,478	0	3	tenant	PAS	No
26	Rosni	662	3,507	0	4	tenant	PAS	No
27	Ariffin	670	2,680	0	3	tenant	UMNO	No
28	Samat	701	4,418	0	5	tenant	PAS	No
29	Nizam bin Haji Lah	712	1,424	0	3	tenant	PAS	No
30	Tok Jariah	716	1,145	1	1.50	owner	UMNO	No
31	Harun Din	717	2,152	0	.50	laborer	UMNO	No
32	Dzulkifli bin Haji Wahab	770	2,540	0	4	tenant	pagar	No
33	Mat Nasir	774	1,780	0	1.50	laborer	PAS	No
34	Mat Buyong	783	4,074	1	5	tenant	PAS	Yes
35	Lebai Hussein	784	6,272	3	6	owner	UMNO	Yes
36	Ali Abdul Rahman	803	1,846	0	2	tenant	UMNO	No
37	Tok Omar	806	3,226	0	4	tenant	UMNO	No
38	Hamid	828	3,810	9.75	0	landlord	UMNO	No
39	Onn	845	2,198	0	1	laborer	UMNO	No
40	Tok Ahmad	861	3,012	0	4	tenant	UMNO	No
41	Abdul Rahman	864	3,974	16.5	11.5	owner	UMNO	No
42	Fadzil	882	4,678	8.5	8	owner	UMNO	Yes
43	Cik Tun	938	1,876	1.5	3	owner	UMNO	No
44	Lazim	957	7,654	3	13.5	tenant	UMNO	Yes
45	Mustapha	973	2,540	3	4	owner	pagar	No
46	Tajuddin	994	3,579	0	4	tenant	UMNO	No
47	Mat Khir	1,020	5,710	0	2	tenant	UMNO	No
48	Tok Halim	1,060	1,060	6	0	landlord	UMNO	No
49	Abdul Rahim	1,083	2,490	0	3	tenant	UMNO	No
50	Cik Latifah	1,091	4,910	5	5	owner	UMNO	No
51	Jamil	1,096	6,138	6	6	owner	UMNO	Yes
52	Tok Sah Bidan	1,162	3,486	2.50	5.50	owner	UMNO	No
53	Zahid	1,169	2,688	1.50	3	\"owner	PAS	No

54	Ghani Lebai Mat	1,219	7,316	5.75	10	owner	UMNO	Yes
55	Kamil	1,246	6,230	0	15	tenant	pagar	Yes
56	Tok Mahmud	1,261	2,522	4	3	owner	PAS	No
57	Abu Hassan	1,343	6,180	3	6	salary	UMNO	Yes
58	Mat Isa	1,536	3,532	0	5	tenant	PAS	No
59	Tok Mah	1,542	5,094	7.5	8	owner	UMNO	No
60	Tok Kasim	1,569	4,708	5.5	6	owner	PAS	No
61	Tok Long	1,582	4,746	3	6	owner	UMNO	Yes
62	Haji Ngah	1,650	3,300	15	0	landlord	PAS	No
63	Shanon	1,769	5,308	4.5	5	owner	PAS	No
64	Basir	1,778	9,948	10	7	owner	UMNO	Yes
65	Ghazali	1,830	4,209	0	8.5	tenant	UMNO	No
66	Shamsul	1,845	7,380	6	8	salary	UMNO	Yes
67	Idris	2,061	6,184	7	6	owner	UMNO	Yes
68	Nor	2,137	7,692	11	11	owner	PAS	No
69	Yaakub	2,137	4,274	3	3	owner	UMNO	No
70	Haji Jaafar	2,154	6,412	15	6	owner	UMNO	Yes
71	Zaharuddin	2,226	5,120	0	5	tenant	UMNO	Yes
72	Amin	2,271	7,494	2.5	10	tenant	UMNO	Yes
73	Lebai Pendek	2,425	9,700	8	13	owner	UMNO	Yes
74	Haji Kadir	4,325	12,940	30	15	owner	PAS	No
	•Net household income figures necessarily convey a level of precision that is unwarranted.					Paddy income, the major component of income

fur most households, may be calculated with some precision. Income from wage labor and sideline jobs is somewhat less accurate, although effOrts were made to double-check such figures. Thus, net household income figures should be considered fair approximations, accurate to within M$200 to M$300 in nearly all cases. Complete and accurate data might, therefOre, change the rank ordering marginally.

bJn a few cases (5) the household owns small amounts of orchard or rubber land. This landholding is not listed, but any income from it is included in the income data.

cln three cases, political affiliation is listed as pagar (the Malay word fur "fence") indicating that the household head is affiliated with no party or both parties, or, in one case, that each spouse is affiliated with a different party. Party affiliations are typically known by all villagers and their independent assessments tally almost perfectly.

SEDAKA, 1967-1979 • 95

annual income within the household; here the richest twenty-two families receive nearly fOur times M$1,867, the per capita income of poor households (M$475).

The disparity in incomes is reflected, as one would expect, in the disparity of secure control over the key factor of production: land. Between them, the twenty-two poorest families in Sedaka own only 22. 5 relong of land-an average of barely 1 relong (1 relong = .71 acres). Keeping in mind that the standard fur a poverty-line income from paddy farming alone is a minimum of 4 relong, the poorest households own scarcely one-quarter of the land required to provide fur their essential needs. The wealthiest twenty-two households, on the other hand, own a total of more than 142 relong, giving them an average owned holding of nearly 6.5 relong. The disparity in farm size, which includes land rented in, at the two poles of the village hierarchy is actually slightly less skewed only because the land owned by many richer families makes it unnecessary for them to rent in additional paddy acreage. Nevertheless, the poorest twenty-two families are able to rent in only enough land to give them an average farm size of less than two relong (1.89) while the richest families have an average farm size of 7.25 relong. Put another way, relatively well-to-do households actually manage to rent in almost as much additional paddy land as poor families, although they need it far less.

In fact, the figures on land ownership, seen from a slightly different perspective, reveal far more glaring inequities. If we disregard fur a moment the income figures in table 4.1 and simply count the households that own no paddy land whatever, thirty families (41 percent) fall in this category. 6 Thus nearly half the village lacks legal control over the major productive asset in rice farming. If we take the half (thirty-seven families) of Sedaka's households who own the least land, we find that they own a mere 7 relong between them. As the total rice land owned by all villagers is 235.5 relong, we have a situation in which half the village owns less than 3 percent of locally owned paddy land. The ten biggest village landowners, by contrast, represent only 14 percent of the households but own outright 133.75 relong, or 47 percent of the rice land owned by villagers.

It is possible to compare the land ownership pattern in 1979 with the situation in 1967 and thereby assess the impact of double-cropping and new technology. There is essentially no change over the past thirteen years, that is, no change in a distribution of land ownership that was, at the outset, extremely skewed. Once account is taken of the increase in the village population from fifty-six to seventy-four households, even the marginal improvement in the proportion of land owned by land-poor households proves to be misleading. Thus, by 1979 the land-poor half of the village was comprised of nine more families than in

6. This finding places Sedaka close to the region-wide norm for the percentage of pure tenants and pure wage laborers in Muda's paddy sector, which is 37 percent. See chap. 3.

96 o SEDAKA, 1967-1979

1967, and among them they owned a negligible 3 percent of the rice land. There are today more families (thirty) owning no paddy land in Sedaka than there were in 1967 (twenty-seven), despite the fact that the proportion oflandless households has declined somewhat.

The relation between land ownership and income in this one-crop economy is obvious. Only fuur of the richest twenty-two families own no land. In all fuur cases the anomaly is accounted fur by various combinations of small family size and outside wages and above all by the renting in of paddy land averaging more than 8 relong per household. For that half of the village with the lowest incomes, conversely, land ownership is conspicuous by its absence. Roughly 60 percent of these poor villagers own no land at all and only three families own more than 2 relong.

The distribution of ownership within the village in paddy land is unlikely to shift markedly in the near future. Higher and steadier yields, when coupled with the traditional Malay reluctance to part with land, has served to slow dramatically the process of land concentration through indebtedness. In the three decades befOre 1970, Haji Kaclir (#74), now the largest landowner in the village, managed to purchase 25 relong in eight separate transactions from smallholders with insurmountable debts. Although he remains as avid for land as in the past, he has not added anything to his holdings since the beginning of double-cropping. Not only are the small landowners whose land he might covet less likely to find themselves in such dire straits, but the market fur rental land is now so buoyant that a hard-pressed smallholder can clear his debts more easily by renting his land out fur several seasons at a time (pajak) and retain title.

By the same token, the marked increase in paddy-land prices has also elim-

TABLE 4.2 o Distribution of Ownership of Paddy Land in Sedaka,	1967-1979
	1967	1979
Total No. of Village Households	56	74
Land-poor
Percentage of total villager-owned paddy land held by land-poor
half of village	1%	3%
-total area (relong)	1.25	7.00
-average owned per household (relong)	.04	.19
-no. of households	28	37
Land-rich
Percentage of total villager-owned paddy land held by top 14%
of village landowners	54%	57%
-total area (relong)	114.50	133.75
-average owned per household (relong)	14.3	13.3
-no. of households	8	10
Total paddy land owned by villagers (relong)	210.25	235.5

SEDAKA, 1967-1979 • 97

inated the possibility of upward mobility fur all but the richest. Such upward mobility through land purchase was certainly not common, even before doublecropping, but five villagers who now own from 3 to 7 relong had managed to buy at least a portion of that land. Since 1970 not a single smallholder in this category has added to his holdings. And if this category is effectively barred from purchasing land, it fullows that those with less than 3 relong of their own, which is to say most of the village households, do not even contemplate the possibility.

Since double-cropping began, only nine villagers have either bought or sold land. The pattern of these transactions reveals not only the diminished pace of land concentration but the fact that the process, if slowed, still moves in the same direction. The buyers are without exception well-to-do, and the sellers are predominantly poor. Four villagers have, since 1970, bougl1t a total of 19.25 relong, much of it located outside the village. Daud, the son of the village headman, Haji Jaafar (#70), has with his father's help purchased 8 relong, including 3 relong from a villager. Nor (#68) has bought 8.25 relong with the help of his father (an outsider who already owns over 50 relong), all of it land at some distance from the village. Amin (#73) has from his own savings purchased 2.5 relong of local land from a wealthy landowning Haji in a neighboring village. Taken collectively, these three households illustrate which class in the village is still able to add to its holdings; they represent three of the six richest households in Sedaka. The one exception, Fadzil (#42), who bought 2. 5 relong from another villager, is the exception that proves the rule. While he is not among the wealthiest ten villagers, he does own 8 relong, and his currently modest income is simply a reflection of the fact that he had to lease out much of his land to raise the capital fur this purchase.

Five villagers have sold land. The two largest sales, for 5 and 10 relong respectively, were made by villagers who were admitted to government settlement schemes and were liquidating their local holdings. 7 All but 2.5 relong of this land was sold to wealthy outsiders fur premium prices. A third sale, of 3 relong, illustrates the circumstances under which poor families may still have to part with their land. Mat "Halus" 's wife (#6) was co-heir, along with at least eight other brothers and sisters, of 3 relong, The heirs could not agree on a mutual division of paddy fields and after a year decided to sell the land and divide the proceeds. The land passed to Daud, son of Haji Jaafar, that is, from one of the poorest households to one of the richest. The two remaining sales were made by two poor widowed sisters, Hasnah (# 15) and Salmah (#20), each of whom sold half a relong to a much wealthier brother living in a nearby village. Both sales were made under rather exceptional circumstances; normally neither sister would

7. It is far more common fur those who leave fur settlement schemes to retain their local land and rent it out.

98 • SEDAKA, 1967-1979

have considered selling. 8 In all five cases, the paddy land sold has passed into the hands of the well-to-do or rich. Two of the sellers were well-off themselves, and their selling could reasonably be seen as investment decisions. For the others, however, the sales were a further step toward landlessness.

The inequities described in a pattern of land ownership can occasionally be mitigated by the actual pattern of tenure. That is, if those with the largest holdings rent out much of their paddy land to poorer farmers, the actual distribution of farm size may be more equitable than ownership statistics would imply. In the case ofSedaka, the actual distribution of cultivated acreage, though it is more equitable than ownership, is nevertheless highly skewed. The ten largest farms, for example, which constitute no more than 14 percent of village households, cultivate a total of 115. 5 relong, or 36 percent of the total paddy land cultivated by villagers. The average size of their farms is 11.6 relong (8.2 acres). The half of the village (thirty-seven families) with the smallest farm sizes, by contrast, cultivates only 58.75 relong, or a mere 18 percent of the paddy land worked by villagers. 9 Their average farm size is only 1.6 relong, or slightly more than 1 acre. Here we have a replication of the general situation in the Muda region: much of the village's farm population does not have access to the productive resources that would allow them to achieve a reliable subsistence. While their small plots may provide many of them with their daily rice, they could not make ends meet without the cash they earn as wage laborers in the paddy fields or elsewhere. ·

As with the figures on land ownership, it is possible to contrast the distribution of farm size in 1979 with the situation in 1967, using Horii's data for the earlier period (table 4. 3). The relative stability of the percentage distributions masks far more dramatic changes. The small farmers in Sedaka have quite literally lost ground. Their share of the total land farmed has diminished from nearly one-quarter to less than one-fifth; the total acreage they farm has declined by

8.The exceptional circumstances were that still another brother who lives on a government rubber estate elsewhere in Kedah and who inherited adjacent land, which he came to farm, simply took over these two small plots and farmed them himself. All entreaties failed and the two sisters, afraid to go to the police or courts, given their brother's reputation fur violence, finally decided to sell their plots to another brother, since they had been unable to cultivate them fur five seasons. The brother who bought the land was, as of 1981, still unable to farm it and had begun a costly law suit to enfOrce his title. The case illustrates the tenuous influence of the state and its agents in enfOrcing property law where anyone is willing to use violence to frustrate its working. According to villagers, however, it is quite an exceptional case.

9.I have included ten families who farm no land at all. While the usual practice in computing farm-size distributions is to include only those families who cultivate at least some land, the results of this procedure underestimate the extent of land hunger. Seven of the ten families in question would jump at the chance to rent in land if it were available; only three are retired cultivators who choose not to farm.

SEDAKA, 1967-1979 • 99

TABLE 4.3 • Distribution of Paddy Farm Size in Sedaka,	1967-1979
	1967	1979
Total No. of Village Households	56	74
Small Farms*
Percentage of total villager-farmed paddy land cultivated by
that half of village with smallest farm sizes	24%	18%
-total area (relong)	85.0	58.75
-average farm si?e per household (relong)	3.0	1.6
-no. of households	28	37
Large Farms
Percentage of total villager-farmed paddy land cultivated by
that 14% of village with largest farm size	40%	36%
-total area (relong)	142.5	175.5
-average farm size per household (relong)	17.8	11.6
-no. of households	8	10
Total paddy land cultivated by villagers (relong)	357.75	323.25

*Includes, fur 1979, 10 families with no farmland. See n. 9.

nearly one-third. Coupled with the growth in the population of the village, this has cut the average farm size for this hard-pressed sector of the village from 3 relong before double-cropping to only 1.6 relong in 1979. This change alone has been sufficient to more than negate the additional income that doublecropping could have provided. 10 It would appear from the figures that largescale farmers have lost considerable ground as well, especially in terms of average farm size. Much of this loss, however, can be traced to a single farmer, Kamil (#55), who in 1967 rented in an amazing 38 relong, most of which has since been reclaimed by the outside landowner and distributed to his heirs.

The reasons for this basic structural change, which threatens the livelihood of the poorest villagers, are important and complex enough to merit extended analysis later; a few reasons have already been mentioned in the preceding chapter. Here it is sufficient to note that demography has played a role. Many rather poor families who have moved into the village have either no land to farm or, more typically, only a relong or two. The process of inheritance has also meant that

10. Double-cropping does not, other things equal, simply double income. The necessary inputs fur double-cropping, including fertilizer, tractor preparation, and increased labor costs, drain away a portion of the new gains. In Kedah, it was initially estimated that the net return for rice land was raised by 60 percent because of irrigation. Thus 1.6 relong would, if double-cropped, be equivalent to 2.66 relong of single-cropped land. The decline by half in the average holding of small farmers in Sedaka has thus left them worse off in terms of farm income despite the fact that they harvest two crops a year.