Tumpangsari is the Javanese name for a planting method in which farmers grow food crops in the open spaces between rows of young teak trees. The crops are harvested for about two years, until the young teak grows tall enough to shade them out. The arrangement is the Javanese counterpart of the taungya method, which began in Burma, and on Java it became the usual way for the state forest service to establish teak plantations. The tumpangsari teak Java arrangement gave the forest managers a cheaper way to prepare, plant and weed young stands, and it gave nearby farmers, many of them with little or no land of their own, a food crop in the first years of each plantation. Understanding it explains a good deal about how Java’s teak forests were built.
Tumpangsari teak java: where the method came from
The idea grew up in the teak forests of British Burma. In 1856 the German forester Dietrich Brandis became superintendent of the teak forests of Pegu division, and he is closely linked with the system that became known as taungya. Karen villagers there practised shifting cultivation in the hills, and Brandis had his officials persuade them to plant teak in their hill clearings. The villagers cleared, planted and weeded the young teak, and in return they could grow their own crops between the trees for the first few years before moving on to new land.
Foresters adopted the idea because it solved a practical problem. A newly planted teak seedling struggles against grass and climbers, and the first years need repeated clearing and weeding. If farmers do that work while tending their own crops, the forest manager pays far less for labour. The system also served the colonial state, which wanted control of the valuable teak forests: over time, many villagers came to depend on the forest service for access to land.
How tumpangsari reached Java
On Java the method took the local name tumpangsari and was first put into practice in the late nineteenth century by the forester Buurman van Vreeden. After that, it spread quickly and was soon applied widely in establishing plantation forests across the island. Java’s teak lies mostly in Central and East Java, and these became the heartland of the practice. Today the state forests of Java are managed by Perum Perhutani, the state forest corporation, which carried the method on.
For much of the twentieth century tumpangsari was the main way teak was planted on Java. Plantations set up with paid daily labour, known as banjar harian, were the exception rather than the rule, used mainly where farmers did not want the land for crops. Where farmers were willing to take plots, the forest service could plant teak at lower cost.
The sequence on the ground
A tumpangsari plot begins with clearing and preparing the ground. The forest service supplies the teak seed or seedlings, which are set out in rows, either sown straight into the field or planted as stumps cut from young nursery trees. Farmers are given a share of the planting area, and they plant their food crops in the open strips between the teak rows. In return they agree to look after the young trees, clearing, weeding and protecting them along with their own crops.
Before work begins, the forest service makes the land available to people in nearby villages, and the farmers and the local forester agree the terms of the arrangement. That agreement sets out the rights and duties of both sides, the size of each farmer’s share of the planting area, the food crops that may be grown, and the farmer’s duty to nurture and protect the young teak. Clear terms mattered because the same strip of ground had to serve two masters: the farmer’s harvest and the forest’s future.
Other trees were often planted alongside the teak for particular jobs. A fast-growing legume, leucaena, was set in rows within the plantation, partly to help hold the soil against erosion, and it had to be cut back regularly so that it did not crowd the young teak.
The crops are grown for about two years. By then the teak is large enough that its shade makes most field crops impossible, and the farmer leaves the plot to the forest service. The farmer’s time on the plot therefore served two purposes at once: it produced a harvest, and it established a plantation that the farmer would never own.
Why the crop mix mattered
Not every crop suits a young teak plot. The usual approved crops were dry-land rice, maize, groundnut and soybean. Crops that compete strongly with the young trees were normally not allowed: cassava, climbing plants, banana and potato were generally excluded, because they could smother or rob the teak in its first years.
Fertiliser also changed the bargain. Later, an intensified form of tumpangsari promoted improved rice varieties, fertilisers and pest control to raise the farmers’ harvests. Feeding and tilling the crops also helped the young teak, which grew faster during the years the crops were fertilised. Tumpangsari was therefore never a single recipe: its results depended on which crops were chosen, whether fertiliser was used, and how well the young trees were tended alongside the crops.
Who worked the plots
Tumpangsari depended on people who had little land of their own. Farmers from villages near the forest, many of them landless or with only small holdings, took plots so that they could grow food. The farmer’s access to land lasted only as long as the plantation calendar allowed.
For the forest service, the system lowered the cost of planting and early care, because farmers did much of the land clearing, weeding and tending that would otherwise have needed paid workers. The benefit for the farmers was real but limited: a harvest for a short period, after which they had to find another plot or another source of income.
The tensions in the arrangement
Tumpangsari was never free of conflict. The farmer’s interest was in the crop, and the forest service’s interest was in a healthy stand of teak that would grow into timber. Crops that crowded or shaded the young trees could harm them, which is why the choice of crops was restricted. The short cropping period was a weakness of the system: once the canopy closed, farmers had to move on. The arrangement also tied people’s access to land to the forest service’s plans, so those who did the hardest work had the least say over the terms.
Tumpangsari today
The idea of growing crops among young teak lives on well beyond the state forest. Teak is also grown by many smallholders on their own land, and in Gunungkidul district in Yogyakarta, teak in farmers’ community forests is often treated as a household savings account, cut and sold when a family needs money. Farmers there and elsewhere on Java often plant teak among food crops, earning short-term income from the crops while the timber grows. Tilling and fertilising the crops can also help the young trees.
The shade limit still governs what can be planted. Under young teak, crops can be grown while there is enough light; as the canopy closes, the space for field crops shrinks. A wider spacing between tree rows leaves more room for crops, while a closer spacing favours the trees, and every grower weighs those two outcomes.
Reading a teak landscape
A visitor walking through a teak plantation on Java will rarely be able to tell how a stand was planted. Tumpangsari plots were laid out with open strips for the crops, but once the canopy closes the trees look much like any other planted stand. It is better to enjoy a teak forest for what it is than to guess at its planting history from the road.
For a broader view of the forests where this work took place, the Java teak forest page sets out the plantations, the timber and the ecology. The sengon tree page covers a fast-growing timber tree planted on Java’s farms, and the gmelina tree page describes jati putih, a pale timber often confused with teak. The Blora regency page describes one of the main areas of Central Java’s teak country, home to the Cepu teak forests, and the Wanagama page covers a university research forest in Gunungkidul.
What the arrangement shows
Tumpangsari is a small but telling example of how a plantation estate was built without a large wage bill. It shows a forest service trading access to land for labour, a farmer trading labour for a harvest, and a forest slowly taking shape out of the work of people who would never own the trees they helped plant. That bargain helped make Java’s teak plantations possible, and it is worth remembering when you look at the rows of trunks along a hillside road.
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