Answering Agrarian Issues through Analysis of Employment Opportunities and Labor Shifting

Agrarian research in Indonesia has developed with its variety of focus areas such as analysis of agrarian structure disparity, land ownership conflicts, and poverty. However, of the several research topics related to agrarian affairs, it is apparent that very few discuss how employment opportunities and types of labor shifting in the agriculture sector exist from a sociological perspective. Agrarian studies in this research have the objective to describe and analyze employment opportunities and types of labor shifting in the agriculture sector in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, Malang Regency. This study uses a qualitative descriptive approach with the data collection technique of participant observation and semi-structured interviews. The unit of analysis is employment opportunities and labor shifting in the agriculture sector, discussed with the Historical Materialism Theory of Karl Marx. Research results indicated that there is a variety of employment opportunities in the agriculture sector, not only limited to land ownership and land tilling. The same is true for patterns of labor shifting; the condition is not as simple as society shifting to non-agriculture sectors. Instead, shifts occur that are temporary in nature and continuous in a cycle depending on the harvest season. The existence of various employment opportunities that implicate labor shifting is certainly due to the existence of a material basis that determines a non-material basis. This is because the position of individuals in the agricultural working class will determine their consciousness and the ways they work.


Introduction
In global agrarian affairs, there is the initiation of agrarian transition to a capitalist system that drives industrialization; this condition leads to the formation of classes in the matter of agrarian control (Byres, 2016;Carlson, 2018;Zhang & Zeng, 2021). In addition, population dynamics and mechanization of agricultural lands have also caused changes in the use of agricultural lands (Katewongsa et al., 2013). Agrarian affairs are indeed not only limited to the problems of land grabbing and agrarian structure disparity, and are far more complex than these issues. Problems in agrarian affairs oftentimes are also related to problems of poverty, labor, and ecological damage (Savitri, 2010).
As an example, agrarian affairs in Indonesia involve the loss of access to land for farmers and conflicts due to disparity in agrarian resource control (Habibie et al., 2021;Lestari, 2014;Suharto & Basar, 2019;Sudiyono et al., 2016). Agricultural lands that have always become agrarian resources have given rise to various problems, such as agrarian technical relations and socio-agrarian relations that highlight the relationship between agricultural society and agricultural lands (Nugraha et al., 2021).
Considering that agrarian affairs in Indonesia mostly involve control disparities of agrarian resources as well as agricultural lands, these problems are quite likely to occur, with the regard that the agriculture sector in Indonesia has become a primary platform for the national economy (Utomo, 2014). Here, the agriculture sector has a significant role, not just as the sector that is able to yield food products. More than that, agriculture becomes a source of labor, one of the generators of national financial reserves, and a participating contributor in increasing demands for industrial products (Nadziroh, 2020).
However, over the course of changes in culture and developments in technology, the agriculture sector in Indonesia is beginning to face challenges. One of the actual challenges being faced at this moment is the occurring phenomenon of land conversion, as in the change in land use from what was once agricultural lands to become areas of industrial development (Putra & Ismail, 2017). Furthermore, the number of farmers in Indonesia is also decreasing (Suratha, 2017); this challenging situation is caused by the greater ease that society possesses in doing business and investment, which supports the ease in establishing and operating businesses, and thus the condition is followed by the emergence of small industries in society (Sundari et al., 2020).
This change in the number of farmers in Indonesia, which has continued to decrease, is also related to changes in the condition of labor in the field of agriculture in Malang Regency. Indeed, agriculture in the economic structure of Malang Regency still plays an important role in economic development (Syairozi, 2020). This is evident in the contribution of the agriculture sector, which ranked first in making up the Gross Regional Domestic Product in 2018 and employment of workers for Malang Regency, which is more dominant by 30% compared to other sectors (Badan Pusat Statistik Kabupaten Malang, 2019). Later on, in 2020, the agriculture sector of Malang Regency still plays an important role in making up the Gross Regional Domestic Product, being ranked third with its contribution of 15.37%.
Yet when compared to the previous year, this condition has experienced a rather significant decrease (Badan Pusat Statistik Kabupaten Malang, 2021). Based on statistical data released by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) of Malang Regency in 2021, it is also mentioned that there has been a decrease in the percentage of the population with primary occupations in the sectors of agriculture, forestry, and fishery all the way to 0.19% in the period from 2018 to 2020. This indicates that each year, there is a decrease in the number of workers in the field of agriculture.
Worker employment and the number of workers in the field of agriculture in Malang Regency have continued on a decreasing trend. The causes for this are the factors of land ownership and level of education, where with a higher level of education, there is an even greater possibility of shifting to the industry sector (Dailabi, 2017). Additionally, there are the factors of income, family burden, and policies from the government (Sundari et al., 2020). Therefore, there needs to be an analysis of employment opportunities and labor shifting in the agriculture sector. This is further the case for regions for which most of the natural resources are agricultural lands, such as in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, Malang Regency.
Several prior studies on agrarian affairs have focused more on agrarian change as a consequence of land reform rather than discussing the phenomenon of labor shifting (Lerche, 2013;Gullette & Singto, 2018;Petit et al., 2018;Gilbert, 2020). Therefore, agrarian research on problems of labor such as employment opportunities and labor shifting, particularly in the agriculture sector in Indonesia, becomes important to be conducted. Considering that not many studies have discussed the labor shifting and the opportunities for employment that are available in the agriculture sector, moreover from a sociological perspective, this study is thus focused to investigate the extent of employment opportunities and labor shifting in the agriculture sector in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, Malang Regency. The agrarian problem that focuses on agricultural labor regarding the factors that cause farmers to shift to non-agriculture sectors has actually been previously discussed, but the discussion was still based on the perspective of economics (Dailabi, 2017;Sundari et al., 2020). Based on the results of literature review, studies on agrarian research with the sociological perspective have discussed more on the disparity of usage (Answering Agrarian Issues …) of agrarian resources (Shohibuddin, 2019;Sihaloho et al., 2016). With the research as a starting point, the discussion regarding agrarian workers has also previously covered the factors that caused farmers in the Xochimilco settlement on the outskirts of Mexico City to continue to remain in the agriculture sector (Pérez-Belmont et al., 2021).
Previously, research with the same topic and location, as agrarian studies in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, had been conducted by Kanō (1990) with discussions of employment opportunities and labor shifting, as well as Leksana (2019) with the primary focus on agrarian change with the use of a historical approach from the colonial period to the New Order era. This study is an attempt to develop the research by Kanō (1990) at Pagelaran Village, Malang Regency that focused on employment opportunities in the field of agriculture and labor shifting. At that time, Kanō (1990) only explained about the conception of employment opportunities, which were categorized into two groups, being the employment opportunities in the agriculture sector that is then further classified as land-owning farmers and land-tilling farmers, as well as the various employment opportunities in non-agriculture sectors. The study also involved the occurrence of labor shifting from the agriculture sector to non-agriculture sectors. However, for the present time, the conditions that Kano had written about in the research have changed in many ways (Kanō, 1990).
As such, in order to be able to respond to the problem of the research, the focus of the study is then directed to show (1) the picture of employment opportunities in the agriculture sector in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, Malang Regency and (2) the types of labor shifting in the agriculture sector in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, Malang Regency. This research attempts to investigate and elaborate the findings of Kano (1990) using the theory of historical materialism by Karl Marx. The approach of Marx regarding historical materialism is employed as the analytical tool in regarding the availability of agrarian objects such as land area and its relation to the availability of employment opportunities and labor shifting of people in the village society

Methods
Agrarian studies in this research are intended to obtain information in an in-depth manner regarding employment opportunities in the agriculture sector and the types of labor shifting in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, Malang Regency. This study utilized the qualitative descriptive approach with the data collection techniques of participant observation and semistructured interviews. The utilized theoretical foundation and analytical tool was the Historical Materialism Theory of Karl Marx. The historical materialism concept by Marx takes the view that the ways in which humans act are determined by material position and not ideas. The economic structure is what influences all human actions while at the same time becoming a driver of change, which includes social change (Salim, 2002). This research involved the qualitative descriptive method, which involves the collection of words, pictures, or recordings based on natural settings and wholeness of context (holistic manner) (Raco, 2010). The research was conducted within 8 months, from September 2021 to April 2022.
The research proceeded in three stages, which were (1) pre-research (observation and document study) in September-December 2021; (2) data collection (observation and semistructured interviews) in January-February 2022; and finally (3) research data processing and analysis, conducted in February-April 2022. The research location was at Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, Malang Regency. The selection of the research location was based on considering the potential of Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, which had applied the development of the regional local economy in the agriculture sector, as well as the local society that becomes the target of the government for conducting training programs in the agriculture sector (Susanti et al., 2013). Based on sectors, agriculture in the economic structure of Malang Regency still dominates with the potential contributions of land in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, which is divided into wet fields and dry fields with a total area of 6,257.35 Ha and is supported by the presence of small-scale, large-scale, and poultry farms (Sudiyono et al., 2021).
Research data consisted of primary data that were obtained directly through observation and interviews. Meanwhile, secondary data were obtained through written sources such as books, scientific research result articles, and official documents that are relevant to the research. The utilized data collection techniques were participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Semi-structured interviews while still referring to the interview instrument in the qualitative approach has the objective of obtaining data that are more complete, more in depth, and possibly less biased when compared to unstructured interviews (Kaharuddin, 2021). The informants in the research were selected with the snowball sampling technique, with eight informants from the farmer group as well as farmers who had conducted shifts of occupational sectors. The data analysis process used the interactive data analysis model of Miles-Huberman and Saldana (2014), by which data that had been collected then was put through three stages of processing: (1) data condensation (reduction); (2) data presentation; and (3) conclusion drawing or verification.

Result and Discussion
Employment Opportunities in the Agriculture Sector in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District Balearjo Village is one of ten villages located in the administrative region of Pagelaran Sub-District, Malang Regency, with Krajan Hamlet as the center of government. The region of Balearjo Village is located in the lowlands. It is located at the coordinates of 110° 48'55.12" East Longitude and 7° 02'27.52" South Latitude, with an area of 234.60 Ha that is bordered by Kanigoro Village to the north, Kademangan Village and Rejoyoso Village, Bantur Regency to the east, and Sengguruh Village, Kepanjen Sub-District to the south (RPJM Desa Balearjo Tahun 2019-2025, 2021). Employment opportunity is the condition of the availability of occupations for people in society (Probosiwi, 2016). Agrarian and in particular agricultural employment opportunity is the condition of the availability of occupations for people in the agriculture sector. In the prior research, Kano (1990) had explained regarding the classification of employment opportunity that is composed of people who work in the agriculture and non-agriculture fields. It was mentioned in the research that people who work in the agriculture sector are those who own agricultural lands and do not rent them to other people; farmhands and those who farm animals are also considered as workers in the field of agriculture.
Presently in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, the people who work in the agriculture sector are not only as farmers who till the land with primary plant commodities such as corn, rice, or sugarcane. Instead, there are various kinds of occupations in the field of agriculture other than farming in wet fields or plantations as is generally conducted, which are composed of animal farming, grinding of harvested plants, and corn supplying. Animal farming, which is still included in the agriculture sector in Balearjo Village, is dominated by people who fall into the millennial age group, as detailed by the following informant.

Corn supplier
These corn suppliers, who act as intermediaries, will purchase corn of good quality whose plants are still of a young age from farmers, who then will supply to one of the milk-producing factories to provide animal feed for dairy cows in the area of Mount Kawi.
The types of occupations in Balearjo cover occupations in the fields of agriculture, trade, and goods and services. For occupations in the agriculture sector that involve land tilling, the kinds of farmers are based on the kinds of plants they cultivate. These farmers are composed of vegetable farmers, rice and corn farmers, and sugarcane farmers.
"There are many kinds here, not just in agriculture, but a lot of it is agriculture -the three kinds are vegetables, rice and corn, and sugarcane" (KM, 65 Years Old, Personal Interview).
In addition to the three kinds of occupations in the field of agriculture as in the above table, there are also employment opportunities as land tillers, being as farmers and farmhands. When classified according to their plants, the various kinds of farmers are composed of the following.

Rice and corn farmer
The cultivation of rice as an important food plant goes through a process of working the land, which begins with the process of arsitan or the first plowing that has the objective of clearing the land; in this process, youth farmers are fairly dominant. This is followed by the second plowing process that the farmers commonly refer to as ndadekno, before being left undisturbed for a time of 2-3 days. The next stage is called mopok, as the raising of the plants to maturity. After all these processes are completed, farmers need a time of approximately 15-20 days before then starting the nggaret process for planting seedlings. The entirety of the process from clearing the land to rice harvest requires a time of 3-4 months depending on the kind of the seedling, and thus rice farmers can harvest 3-4 times in one year.
The cultivation of corn is differentiated according to three kinds: corn for seedling cultivation, corn for human consumption, and corn for animal feed. The planting of corn seedlings is conducted with one larik'an (row) ideally containing five female plants and one male plant that does not need to be pulled when it blossoms, unlike with female plants. This is conducted for effectiveness of plant reach in pollination. For corn for human consumption, the plants are ready for harvest after an age of 100-110 days, in contrast to corn meant for animal feed, which must not be allowed to develop kernels.

Sugarcane farmer
The cultivation of sugarcane begins with brujul (dry plowing); in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District, this process is conducted with mechanical tractors and no longer with animal power. There is also another stage that immediately begins with the process of ngepras, or leaving sugarcane stems that have been cut down during harvest until they grow sprouts. This is then followed by the processes of sulam (replacing problematic sugarcane plants), mupuk (fertilization), and gulut (plowing under).

Vegetable farmer
In contrast to farmers of other kinds of plants, vegetable farmers must observe their land every day. This is because farmers judge the condition of young vegetable plants to be vulnerable to disease. Thus, it is necessary to control vegetables at least one to two hours each day. Cultivation of vegetable plants is varied and includes shallots, cucumber, cabbage, long beans, chilies (regular and bird chilies), tomatoes, eggplant, green beans, cauliflower, and mushrooms. The kinds of planted biopharmaceutical plants are ginger, galangal, sand ginger, turmeric, and noni. The kinds of planted fruit plants include avocado, langsat, durian, oranges, mango, mangosteen, jackfruit, papaya, bananas, rambutan, snake fruit, sapodilla, breadfruit, soursop, rose apples, guava, starfruit, melinjo, and stink beans.
Farmhands are those who work in the agricultural lands of other people from planting to harvest. The waging systems that apply in Balearjo Village are daily wages, piece wages, and sharecropping, the last of these specially applying during harvest. Daily wages are wages that are paid per day with working periods of a full day or just half a day. Farmers who work for a full day with a break time between 12-1 PM will be paid Rp. 80,000 with the landowner providing food. Piece wages are wages that are relatively greater in amount (compared to daily wages) because the wages are paid to one person to be distributed to several farmhands who work on one field. They may then distribute the wages by agreement. For example, a field that is usually worked on by 5-6 people is worked on by only 3-4 people. In this way, the earned wages will be greater because the wage distribution is not too great. However, piece wages are only for sugarcane, and for rice, they only apply during the plowing process.

(Answering Agrarian Issues …)
Sharecropping, which is only applied during the harvest, is the payment of wages with the harvest yields according to an agreement between the landowner and farmhands. The sharecropping ratio is 9:1 from the total harvest.
"The system for the harvesters is 1:16, so the harvesters get 1 part and the landowner gets 16 parts. Let's say that a harvest yielded 17 quintals (1700 kg), for example. 1 quintal is for the farmhands and the other 16 are for the owners when harvesting rice." (BS,51 Years Old,Personal Interview) The classification of farmers and farmhands in the following table (Table 3) represents the classification based on the characteristics of land area and occupational sector shifts, which will later on be discussed in the next section. Works on agricultural lands of other people from planting to harvesting One of the farmers in Balearjo, named BS (51 years old) stated that the land in possession has an area of 12,000 m 2 or 1.2 hectares with rice plants. The process of land maintenance involves the use of farmhands during land tilling and harvest, while the rest are worked by oneself. The postharvest process is worked by oneself; as one of the owners of a grinder, BS (51 years old) stated that the movement in agriculture may be said to be "from start to finish", from the land tilling process to post-harvest. More specifically, this involves the renting of plows, sales of seedlings, sales of fertilizer, grinding of harvest yields, and all the way to acting as an intermediary.

Types of Labor Shifting in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District
Previously, Kano (1990) affirmed that the shifts outlined in that research are shifts that are permanent in nature; in this study, two kinds of shifts are differentiated, which are permanent and temporary. In that year, the shifting that occurred was the shifting of labor from the agriculture sector to non-agriculture sectors, such as by becoming employees or soldiers in the military (TNI) (Kano, 1990).
People who shift occupations from the agriculture sector to other sectors are presently not encountered in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District. This means that the presently occurring condition is instead the opposite, as the people are starting to choose to become involved in the agriculture sector. This applies to the process of labor shifting that is permanent in nature or over a long time, but does not apply to labor shifting that is temporary or seasonal in nature. As such, the shifting of labor in Balearjo Village, Pagelaran Sub-District may be differentiated into two: labor shifts that are permanent or temporary. Shifts that are permanent are enduring in nature and longlasting, even forever.
"Oh, something like that doesn't exist. The people here who work in the hamlet and then stop likely go back to the fields. Then, when civil servants retire, likewise they return to the fields." (SY, 63 Years Old, Personal Interview) The permanent shifting of labor, as has been previously mentioned, occurs for people who previously had not worked in the agriculture sector. This occurs when people who were previously employees, as both civil servants and private employees (factory hands) enter their retirement period, as well as for entrepreneurs and overseas migrant workers. For these migrant workers, the pattern is that they work overseas and start to purchase land, and when they return to Indonesia, they begin farming. Meanwhile, temporary simply means "not forever" (KBBI, 2022). In this case, the community of farmers refers to the condition with the term "seasonal", because the condition occurs depending on the harvest cycle of agricultural lands. The shifting of labor that is seasonal in nature occurs for people who comprise small-scale farmers and farmhands. The matter of seasonal labor shifting is in actuality not as simple as "shifting to other sectors" and is instead quite complex, as in the case of small-scale farmers and farmhands, who each possess differing characteristics of labor shifting.
Small-scale farmers, for example, after tilling their own land will till the lands of other people. This may be conducted because the planting and harvest processes from one landowner to another do not always take place simultaneously. The process continues to occur, and these farmers will even till land in different villages or hamlets. The same is true for farmhands, with the difference being that farmhands do not own lands. Thus, in these conditions, to fulfill their livelihoods, these farmers cannot depend solely on the agriculture sector. This is as explained by KM (62 years old), who addressed the shifting of farmers to other sectors.
"…those who cut down plants are also present. But after the grinding factories have stopped, they no longer cut down plants. They wait for the next one. Then, where they go after the factory shuts down, they turn to hoeing (sugarcane maintenance) and then ngepras, sulam, mupuk, gulut…" (KM, 62 Years Old, Personal Interview).
Farmhands who in the case of having finished tilling the first land and subsequent lands during the planting season will then seek other occupations, such as being a construction worker or working at a grinding factory as explained above. This condition continues to persist until the harvest season returns and these farmhands once again work on the fields. These two conditions of labor shifting that is temporary in nature can be depicted as in the following illustrations. The historical materialism concept of Marx, as in Salim (2002), declares that the ways by which people act are determined by material positioning and not on ideas. This is because ideas are in fact also considered as material objects. This matter is what then implicates the viewpoint regarding the economic structure influencing all human actions and at the same time becoming the driver of change, for which social change is included therein (Salim, 2002). Further, Suseno (1999) explains the view of Marx regarding historical materialism as having the basic principle that human consciousness is not the determinant of their condition, but instead, social condition or position in

Tilling own land
Tilling the land of others society is what determines consciousness. In this way, the development of society is not determined by consciousness, but the reality of the positioning of the society. Here, societal conditions or social conditions are understood as the means of production (occupation). The positions of people in a social class very much determine their ways in seeing the world. It can thus be assured that the consciousness of each individual will differ depending on their positions in social classes. The ways that individuals work determine the ways that they think (Magnis-Suseno, 1999), as in what occurs between farmhands and landowners in the village, for which the difference between the two is clearly apparent.
Those who possess land with areas less than a certain amount, between 0.15-0.3 hectares, are small-scale farmers as well as farmhands; for them, agriculture is not the sole source of income, and thus there is no other choice for this group other than to conduct labor shifting to other sectors and to depend on those who possess production equipment. The position of agricultural workers in this social class affects consciousness and ideals. With existing wages, farmers of this class only think about how they will survive, and do not go as far as the stage of how they would control agricultural lands. In this process, the real basis becomes the determinant of the upper construction.
Those who are owners of agricultural lands with land areas of 0.5-2.0 hectares are considered as large-scale farmers who till their own lands while at the same time hire other people to work on their lands. A greater individual ownership of agricultural lands means a greater income that is obtained, allowing easier access to implement control in all sectors in the field of agriculture from land tilling to post-harvest. For owners of grinders for harvest plants, with land ownership at 1.2 hectares and the income that they obtain, they may possess a productive force, as workers and grinding machines. The real basis that farmers possess in this class, which is composed of the productive force (land ownership, production tools, labor) and production relations (division of labor and wage system) in the tilling of agricultural lands, plays a part in determining the upper construction (consciousness and ideals).
The difference between these two classes of agricultural workers also indicates how their consciousness or ideals differ. The same is true for migrant workers: they who have previously never worked in the agriculture sector will collect as much capital as possible in order to purchase agricultural lands when they then return to the village. With the economic basis that they have possessed, this encourages the emergence of consciousness and ideals of the migrant workers to obtain access toward agrarian resources. The migrant workers in Balearjo who initially used land as investment changed to using them as the primary source of income when they return to the village. This condition represents how social classes that are not farmers become farmers and how large-scale farmers perform accumulation of capital to become able to control the agriculture sector from all aspects.

Conclusion
The employment opportunities in the agriculture sector that are presently available are considered varied in its kinds. In looking back to the year 1990, the occurring change is clearly present. Previously, employment opportunities in the agriculture sector, according to the conception by Kano, are stated to be classified into the two classes of landowners and land tillers, and the explanation of labor shifting is only limited to the kind of shifting that is permanent in nature. The condition that is currently present is instead the opposite, as the available employment opportunities in the agriculture sector are not just in the process of tilling the lands that other people possess. However, there are other kinds of occupations that do not only involve the tilling of land, in the form of other occupations that are still within the scope of utilizing agrarian resources, such as animal farming and post-harvest processing such as grinding.
The material basis contributes in determining the non-material basis that covers consciousness, ideals, ideas, and ways of working. The existence of various employment opportunities that implicate the shifting of workers is certainly because of the existence of a material basis that determines the non-material basis. The position of individuals in the agricultural working class will determine their consciousness and their ways of working. Farmhands work by depending on the people who possess production tools, while large-scale farmers and small-scale farmers will attempt to perform capital accumulation and control as many production tools as possible.
Agrarian studies on agriculture or even labor in the field of agriculture truly becomes an interesting and complex issue. This is further the case for studies in social science, because agrarian space as the place where humans live contains within it relations that not only occur between humans and the land. More than that, within it there are also relations and control of individuals toward the land or from one individual to another in terms of land utilization.