Agrobiotechnology at The Nexus between Clientelism and The State's Authority : The Indonesian Case

. The impact of the Green Revolution in Indonesia over the past 50 years has entirely changed the social structure of the farming community. The state and its institutional apparatus once took a huge part in controlling the agricultural sector, yet this vital role has indeed declined dramatically over the past two decades in line with the political push to implement a democratic agenda due to the concerns with the society. However, in rural areas of Java the authoritarian mechanism of agricultural management was quickly replaced by a new type of patronage that no longer relied on land tenure, but rather controlled seeds and fertilizer. The link between the state and seeds as well as fertilizer companies in controlling the dynamics of the Javanese farmer community has led to every agricultural and polemic innovation that has shaped the state's relationship with civil society for decades, which has not yet made the farmers an independent community. Regarding the issues concerning land tenure, a classic critique of patronage, now the shift over the meaning of patronage is more centered on the control of seeds and fertilizers as if these were still a critical effort that did not have adequate capacity on the part of farmers and those who stand for farmer justice. Criticism of the tacit application of agricultural biotechnology in East Java remains a secondary issue, and it faces no obstacles at all upon going through the clientelism structure driving the mechanism of agricultural management in rural areas.


THE STATE IN THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS OF SEEDS AND FERTILIZERS IN INDONESIA
For decades, agricultural conditions in Indonesia have depended on the presence of networks and actors who play a secondary role in the distribution of fertilizers and seeds. There are times when the state can be substantially dominant in controlling entire aspects of agriculture, at both national and local scale. This is driven by the important role of bureaucratic institutions and civil servants apparatus in regulating cropping and distribution patterns. This condition took place in stages with each stage strengthening the role of the state indirectly intervening agricultural sectors as well as the roles of the actors who have grown up along with the government agricultural bureaucratic posture, especially in rural Java.
The initial stages commencing in the colonial era took place as the state attempted to introduce seeds and agricultural management without considering the owners of seeds, the farmers. If we look at Berman's description in this period, several concerns will develop massively to further strengthen the influence in postcolonial Indonesia (Berman, 2010). This increasingly widespread state's influence is emphasized in general land tenure, with some seeds outside the main crop expected by the state to replenish cash profits. These seeds, however, are still owned and planted by farmers.
According to Wertheim, the transition process of Indonesian society in the post-colonial era up to several decades afterwards demonstrates that the Indonesian government apparatus was nothing more than what had become the agricultural management system in the previous colonial era ( Wertheim: 1964). The size of the productive land area for agriculture indicates the profit margin set by the state. As such, to a certain extent, the state is only able to rely on profits and control over the lands under its management, namely plantation land, compared to paddy fields managed by farmers. It is obvious that in the post-colonial era the previous colonial era imposed the planting of seeds on private land owned by farmers, which was nothing more than a 2 form of colonial exploitation practice that had to be abolished. Therefore, the role of the state at this point tends to weaken and resign to only manage plantation lands with plants that become international commodities.
Villages in this era become autonomous due to state intervention in managing seeds and fertilizers. Private or village-owned barns store not only crops but also the seeds that will be planted. This notion has been portrayed in the minds of farmers and those involved in agriculture as independent parties in managing their basic food needs. On the one hand, the actors who were previously attached to the colonial agricultural system, especially in the era of forced planting, returned as fairly influential figures in each village by becoming the sole patron of agricultural problems (as a landowner with more authority) alongside the state employees. This served as mere political representation.
Upon the global situation of the 1960s-1970s, known as the Green Revolution, the role of countries, which had previously focused on managing land and plantation crops again strengthened their systems by supervising and at a certain point the imposition of seed planting and fertilizer use provided by the state (Bernstein, 2010). This period occurred in the most authoritarian period in Indonesia, namely the New Order era. The political and repressive power of the state was so paramount in bringing about the Green Revolution. As a result, Javanese rural farmers had to deal with a social reality that they had to substitute their seeds with seeds sold by the government. The pressure on the farmers was so inevitable due to the increasingly massive initiative to establish a nationally established seed crop distribution line.
Seed and fertilizer companies were fully under the state's control through the presence of cooperatives in each village (known as KUD: Koperasi Unit Desa). The village granary was replaced by a national granary managed by a ministerial-level logistic body (BULOG: Badan Urusan Logistik). Market prices were forced to keep up with the state's desire for establishing certain types of crops; rice and sugar cane. Also, farmer groups were formed, becoming the subject in technical instructions for planting seeds and the use of monotonous fertilizers (Hayami & Kawagoe, 1993). The diversity of political orientations among these farmers groups, which were previously dominant in Indonesian rural politics, was abolished. This resulted in a single political orientation. The view of rural rice fields became so monotonous during one planting period. However, the real disaster only occurred after the mechanism was operational. The low-profit margins obtained by farmers and environmental damage due to the use of pesticides were known only to a few parties, and the large profits from agricultural companies depended on the state as an instrument of marketing and distribution.
Green Revolution in the era after the New Order opened wide space for trade wars between agricultural companies in rural Java. The absence of a single state control, along with democratic expectations, nullified the state domination in the stateside. The bankruptcy of KUD and the cease of BULOG's golden age were the most striking sign portraying how the state's role disappeared in rural regions of East Java and the island of Java in general. However, a new mechanism was developed since the previous era, namely the absolute dependence of farmers on fertilizers and seeds engineered by agricultural companies. The remnants of seeds claimed by farmers in rural East Java as a legacy before the Green Revolution were muted and ignored amidst the increasingly strong use of certified seeds and fertilizers. Being the agricultural centre, farmers and former seeds were no longer difficult to be accessed by farmers and pertinent parties in East Java. It was difficult to guarantee the presence of these seeds to sustain the continued circulation of certified seeds distributed by the government.
This polemic on certified seeds and fertilizers created a special threat for Indonesian farmers when they wanted to get additional gain from what they had allocated in their respective farmer groups (Farmers Group Association: Gapoktan). The creativity to use organic fertilizer from livestock waste and to create new hybrid seed types did not arise because of demands for creative economy. The effort arose from the demands to deal with weak distribution chains and expensive prices of certified fertilizers. The limitation on the use of hybrid seeds around the land was the extent reachable to marketing the seeds. On the other hand, the company's certified seed and fertilizer market was able to freely enter East Java villages and compete among the existing products, which subsequently put farmers in tough competition.
The state's role, which previously took over the management of seeds and fertilizers has now focused more on fertilizer providers for Gapoktan. However, such an undertaking does not weaken the state's power over controlling seeds. On the one hand, the state's control over seeds in this period does not tend to be repressive or coercive. Instead, the state provides a set of instruments and regulations at both national and regional level to legalize several company-owned seeds in the local markets. This democratic control due to the absence of coercion as in the New Order era has afforded the state with full access to seeds and competition of agricultural companies. The state has thus become more inclusive with the hope of opening an inclusive market for seeds and fertilizers, yet this character is only a surface structure. Inter-company battles, the emergence of diverse forms of local patronage in each rural Java, and political and agricultural dynamics in each region also determine the politics surrounding seeds and fertilizer which is predicted to expand: seeds and biotechnology fertilizers.
Java. In the village where he lives, he runs a store that sells agricultural equipment, including seeds and fertilizer. We met him to talk about the issues related to agricultural biotechnology, to which he has no objection. The talk focused on the agriculture conditions in his village and his profession besides becoming traders. He entered the house, which was behind his farm store, and allowed us to talk to his wife, who served some sellers. Of course, his wife's answer only revolved around the origin of the seeds, fertilizers and commodities in her store, just like other traders who calculated profit margins from supply and demand.
By contrast, before ending the conversation with us, Agus stressed that he understood that there were rules against employees like himself to being involved in trading seeds and fertilizers. This was because Agus realized that the farmers often looked for subsidized fertilizer in his store. This was what farmers could not obtain outside of zones and stores officially registered by the government. Subsidized fertilizer quotas set by the government made agricultural stores only sell particular kinds of fertilizers and seeds other than subsidized items. However, the opportunity for such a profit was relatively reduced amid the persistence of farmers asking for subsidized fertilizer. Agus implied that his rejection of our question was that he was aware of the banned distribution of subsidized fertilizer outside the zone. He decided to conceal his marketing and sales.
Agus was a typical village actor who had a fairly strong bargaining position among farmers as he was known as one of the government employees who had the authority in agriculture. The store was also known by farmers outside his village through word of mouth. He found it safe to run the store on a daily basis, which was managed by his wife. Concerning Wertheim's previous discussion, Agus was a patron in his village not because he was a dominant landowner ruling the farmers, but because his position as a government employee made him respected in the farming community.
Village communities in general and especially farmers will always see Agus as a provider for access to basic needs, which otherwise would be inaccessible to the community. He was fully aware of the government regulations against selling subsidized commodities, but on the other hand, he knew that farmers had no access to the commodities. The limitation of seeds and fertilizer for farmers was the main trigger for how they looked at Agus' mistakes and "protected him" because of the mutual benefits.
A quite different story would arise if only farmers had to obtain subsidized fertilizers or seeds outside the access provided by Agus. They would have to get it from retailers who sold and promoted the non-subsidized items. The farmers always tried to achieve high profits as they failed to achieve expected harvest or high profits. By offering a new seed or fertilizer product, the farmers were able to put aside the failure of the previous seed or fertilizer product by trying something new. Unlike Agus in terms of access, the legal retailers purely pursued profits from the seed and fertilizer market, or they could also be the sellers who came to farmers to promote new seed or fertilizer. This difference made them the front line for agricultural companies to enter East Java villages. Each of them portrayed a good impression of an agricultural company, as they put on uniforms with company emblems or stuck company logos in their stores.
Ironically, this way was not done by only one retailer since there would be many retailers who were always fighting over farmers as consumers of their products. The competition among retailers will continue up to the end of every harvest or the outset of planting period. They will vie for promoting their products and put forward the shortcoming of other retailers' products when farmers' yields are falling. The offered price of retailers' products created tough pricing competition, but the best suggestion was always a new choice of seeds and fertilizer that was believed to portray more accurate profit and loss of farmers. This was a leeway to anticipate a possible downturn. However, farmers also realized that new thing did not guarantee a definite change from the previous harvest. Retailers, who sold the seed and fertilizer products, could not guarantee the final results of the products they sold. Farmers would carry out buy-off transactions in the light of avoiding collateral. The best retailers would be well known to farmers by their ability to sell expected products, rather than the name of the company selling the seed or fertilizer. This was because they were able to convince farmers their products were different and better than those sold in the previous planting period.
The state's role through the presence of their employees (PPL: Field Extension Officers) in distributing seeds and fertilizers on one side was a program implying "advice". Probed further, this kind of program carried out by each local government in East Java was consciously interpreted as the elimination of seeds and fertilizers which had been distributed and planted previously. This elimination meant that, technically, seeds and fertilizers previously promoted for farmers eventually expired. As a result, it is necessary to plant and use new types of fertilizers and seeds which the state has brought into the market. This mechanism at the most crucial point opened up vast space for the competitive markets from seed companies, which in turn encourages the state to act as a broker among farmers to use company-owned fertilizer and seeds.
As a corollary, the fast-paced agricultural innovations, being the legacy of the Green Revolution, are still quite influential in rural parts of East Java, where farmers as consumers buy products from the stateowned companies or retailers. If we look at the state's role in controlling the recent conditions, its power has been no longer amplified by KUD regulation, but the official permits of seeds and fertilizers which farmers are allowed to use. In a broader social relationship, the state becomes a patron. The focus of our analysis departs from a classical study that outlines the patronage relationship between farmers and the dominant parties in terms of production. This form of patronage in the farmers' social structure results from the relationships sustaining the interdependence between landlords and poor farmers. These days, the disappearance of large landowners who have quite a significant role as patrons for farmers during the crisis, the patronage orientation of poor farmers have shifted to the figure of new patrons who possess the access to the availability of seeds and fertilizer. To some extent, this shift designates political support for the patron who provides what the farmers require.
We have a different emphasis from the focus of Aspinall & Berenschot' discussion, in that its analysis aims to describe that patronage leads to the creation of a clientelism network giving rise to political support for politicians during campaigns and elections (Aspinall & Berenschot, 2019;. However, we have also pondered the impacts of such mechanism since we investigated the clientelism mechanism and the aspects of agricultural innovation implemented by the state through this mechanism, rather than putting them aside. This is because the present study is projected to support farmers' independence in the advent of innovation at national and regional level.
There are two intriguing things when we relate the emergence of this kind of patronage who later becomes a clientelistic system in rural areas of East Java. The linkage between retailers and politicians/countries is bound by the industrial development in a region, especially with the increasingly inclusive policies of national and regional governments on investment and capacity building of the agricultural industry. We will elaborate on the points of the clientelism debate as outlined by the following concerns. First, it is the direct dependence of the state, in this case, the regional government, on the original region income and its efforts to obtain community support through initiating agricultural programs. This encourages a direct link between the state agenda and the needs of agricultural companies to develop their capacity to master the seed and fertilizer markets in each region through a cooperative relationship with the company. Second, the issue is driven by the increasingly open level of competition in the agricultural industry to remote villages in East Java with the more prevalent seed planting programs in some rice fields owned by village farmers. This leads to a relative oversight of the seed and fertilizer manufactured by state-owned companies that the state attempts to promote through Gapoktan. The companies will develop different types of relational patterns from farmers, through establishing partnerships or selling off their products. Third, there has been control of seeds and fertilizers by the state, which makes the marketing competition exclusively limited to particular parties. On the other hand, the weaknesses in managing the "official" product open the path to informal space that provides access to seeds and fertilizer, which is commonly managed by several employees.
Concerned with this weakness, we unravelled a surprising thing from one of the employees who served as PPL, he said that "farmers were vulnerable to the deficiency in terms of seeds and fertilizer, because they did not understand the standard usage patterns as recommended; nor were they trained through each Gapoktan". From the state's perspective, this weakness does not manifest structural weakness in the application of programmed cropping patterns but rather relates to an individual error in complying with the standards. This is certainly understandable, especially if we look at each package of seeds and fertilizer sold to farmers. There will be rules and strict standards for farmers applied product usage. If improper "dosage" is applied, then farmers will find it difficult to obtain seeds and fertilizer outside the allocated for each Gapoktan. However, this typical error does not only occur on one individual, which accounts for why demands for the seeds and fertilizer always exceed the allocated volume.
Therefore, we obtained a picture of agriculture management in East Java. There will always remain some informal degree germane to what information the state can formally retrieve. This is believed to be the case despite partial efforts by farmers to set themselves free from such patronage relationship by creating their fertilizer or hybrid seeds independently. These basic assumptions emphasize more on the effort to seek greater profit margins than just the scientific ideas behind each innovation. Threats and sanctions imposed by the intellectual property rights on each seed and fertilizer product ultimately obstruct this innovative capacity. As such, through practical steps, farmers prefer restoring and even strengthening mutual relations with the state, both through the acceptance of programs and by employees acting as sellers and retailers. This clientelism relationship may not always put farmers at advantage, but at a certain stage this relationship can help farmers to avoid total collapse; an existential condition which was used as a classic dictum by James C. Scott as a neck-deep sink that would no longer be able to deal with violent ripples (Scott, 1977)

INNOVATION IN THE FACADE OF DEMOCRACY
Markoff avers several aspects in the development of democracy where the elites hijack democracy. The façade of democracy, as he calls it, presents a set of state and civil society institutions which were previously marked the authoritarian era as having changed and developed into a state apparatus with active involvement of civil society. What happens is only the front view of a democratic face hijacked in such a way by the elites who adapt to the new face (Markoff, 1996). The absence of substance that explains the practice of democracy as a new social structure different from the previous period only explains that democracy operates in the realm of regulatory inclusiveness, while still making the principle of its implementation under the control of old and new responsive elites. In this section, we describe the analysis, demonstrating that the changes in national agriculture over the past 20 years in Indonesia have had a considerable impact as a result of the authoritarian era in rural Java. However, the impact of the Green Revolution practices in Indonesia over the past 50 years has changed the social structure and cognition of Javanese farmers as an independent community. Also, the practices also lead to the emergence of social groups having access to seed and fertilizer innovation considered substantial to strengthen the legacy of the old structure through economic inclusiveness mechanisms.
Despite this access, there is still a form of control over the national agriculture management system which is bound to political interests, instead of oriented to innovative principles in the Green Revolution. This degree of control is highly relative if it can be measured in general because the community is facing the complexity of fundamental demands for land tenure. This community with the various names it bears has established different properties from other farmers' communities for their ultimate objectives and roles. Although these roles may be secondary, they can eventually become part of their identity. This community is often called the farmer union, a name that carries a long shadow of Indonesia's national history as well as an unfortunate civil society movement across periods.
The demands emerging in the Indonesian farmer movement show fluctuating trends when examined from national and regional media. Sometimes they can be so charming to remind politicians, agricultural practitioners and the public. They are still present in their militancy and their demands are always the same, namely the ownership of agricultural land. This blurred image of the farmer movement sometimes still appears as a legacy of the past that was formed in the onset of New Order and the stigma they gained after various conflicts arising at the beginning of the Reformation era. An ambition for criticism framed in a radical and anarchistic image. Nevertheless, with the burgeoning concerns in farmer movement, the state begins to take another issue into account, namely agrarian reform. This makes each farmer union a group bound to a political point of view while increasing its organizational capacity. This kind of mirror is related to the momentum that they can manage as well as the accumulation of the development of grassroots political movements in Indonesia as a whole (Rachman, 2011).
The unique image of farmer movements, in general, is that the state also has considerable attention towards them. Constituting a fairly large number of rural residents, farmers are managed by the state through farmer groups incorporated in several villages or subdistricts. Gapoktan has one official guide of state employees called PPL. This group for the state is a representation of "well-recognized" farmers. This is certainly related to their ability and history which are always recorded as both victims of policies and objects of agricultural innovation from state policies. Therefore, the widest impact of each agricultural innovation can be identified even from the success of each Gapoktan. Different from Gapoktan, farmer unions were formed based on certain roots and conditions presupposing them to gain bargaining power toward the state. The pre-requisites for democratic politics that accompany the rise of each national regime have always been the focus of their attention. In some aspects, they are the most zealous actors in regional head elections by partaking as the most militant contributor to votes. For their internal strength, gaining the strongest support is obtained from political sympathy from empowering groups in advocacy programs. This mechanism makes farmer unions more present before the public as political groups rather than professional groups. This links their bargaining power to farmers' ability to gain access to information outside of the patronage in their villages.
Farmers unions in some cases are balancing the strength and power of the employee's to retailer's patronage as well as inhibiting the penetration of agricultural companies in the village. After talking with one figure in the farmer union, we learned that their network was connected nationally and eloquently informed of debates around the critical issues concerning the latest innovations in agricultural biotechnology. Sensitivity to the latest issues in agricultural innovation, especially in terms of criticism, prevents friction since local officials will tend to avoid meeting them. Their demands will be difficult to meet for local officials because one thing they cannot make political decisions from these demands or limited authority that is not owned by these officials. This is understandable as in the case we discovered in Jember. Farmer unions in this district have been so important to support the nomination of several regional legislative members and even regional leaders. This bargaining power builds a strong image for farmer unions to exercise direct control over regional policies. The everlasting issue in question is more focused on the most basic demands of production, land. The bargaining power which encourages the growth of political lobbying at the legislative and regional executive levels is ultimately interfered by the limited authority of these institutions when they have to deal with the reality of land demanded to be under the authority of national-level institutions, including plantation companies and national parks.
Stark difference occurs when local officials come to or call the farmers involved in Gapoktan. This is due to the invitation to deliver a program package or control routine within its authority to the Gapoktan institution. Therefore, it is easy for national and regional policymakers to create assumptions and even tangible evidence (photos of village activities and graphs of program administration) to evince that farmers have accepted each program offered by the state. This is even the case when the program has been implemented by farmer groups in Gapoktan. By doing so, the majority of farmers in rural regions of East Java are so dependent on their patronage to the state and at the same time open up opportunities to establish the same mechanism of relationship with agricultural companies as long as this 6 can be obtained through momentum which is also initiated by the state.
Biotechnology development will not take place in agricultural areas when farmers or agricultural activists process information on biotechnology from wider access than Gapoktan. A fairly extensive and national network of farmer unions in East Java can easily put political and intellectual pressure on the initiation of agricultural biotechnology. However, this will most likely not be able to impact the realization of the program for farmers who are tied to Gapoktan. They will be in groups or individuals, looking for a way out not to build criticism of agricultural biotechnology. However, it is important that business maintains profit margins amid the weak and occasional lack of supply of seeds and fertilizer sold by the government. Another issue is concerned with the price of seeds or non-subsidized fertilizer when it becomes way too expensive for farmers.
Such complexity will not have a strong impact on consumers to critically understand biotechnology innovations in the agricultural commodities they consume. Also, the public confined access to information is driven by the absence of a solid network to cope with real conditions in the field. The solution to this issue relies on the efforts to build public opinion based on professionalism relevant to the public perspective.
The historical setting of the agricultural industry in East Java is one indicator of agricultural sustainability and consumers' passive acceptance of each production. Mostly, since the colonial era, East Java's agricultural lands have been designed from the start to support industrial supplies in each region. Sugar factories were established in each city and are still made operative to produce national sugar production. Agricultural commodities, such as sugar, are not only used to meet the needs of food consumption for national consumers but also support the operation of large global foodflavouring (MSG) industries, as seen in Jombang, Sidoarjo and Probolinggo. Likewise, tobacco in most of the eastern regions of East Java and several other commodities such as soybeans in Jember have also faced the same trends. Both have distribution chains that absorb agricultural output. The processing industries have been designed to comply with the productive lands that grow these commodities.
On one side, the industry as a long production line for the national industry is projected to absorb hundreds of thousands of workers in each sector. This also represents a reason for reinforcement that will absorb and maintain the existence of agricultural sector in East Java. The state policies always support the increase in industrial production capacity for ensuring the number of agricultural products. However, there are small stumbling blocks for the industry growth, namely the ability of farmers in choosing plants with the biggest estimated profit in farming. For example, Banyuwangi at the eastern end of the island of Java and the province of East Java, farmers in the region see a global market share that is changing cropping patterns and agricultural land use. Through the support of the local government, farmers use land to grow dragon fruit, which differentiates them from those planting other types of plants. This difference certainly narrows the need for other global commodities as we discussed earlier, especially in terms of land use to be planted. On the other hand, this has become the state's vigilance which has opened the path of agricultural economic inclusiveness in the absence of coercion to plant certain types of plants monolithically. The state is also aware of the risk that the narrowing of land will support industrial supply in the region because farmers can freely choose the plants for their land. The dilemma prevailing in the democratic philosophy is related to reducing the state's absolute power over the farmers' economic and political sectors. But for the same reason, we can see that this encourages the hope and application of innovations in agricultural biotechnology in East Java.
We have yet to know exactly how far the implementation of agricultural biotechnology will last in rural regions of Java. The cooperation between the regional government, central government and companies in Jember, for example, is trying to develop sugar biotechnology on state-owned plantation land. Further examinations need to take a closer look at the development of agricultural biotechnology in collaboration with state-owned institutions such as plantations. Then an absolute question will emerge, which has always been the object of debate and the trigger to the emergence of farmer unions in East Java. If we link to how this trial in the government perspective must succeed, then we will see a fairly basic aspect which determines management as a pre-requisite in responding to the demands of the farmer unions. This can be carried out either through social forestry or through agrarian reform. Social forestry agenda offers an open land with more independent management of the smallholder farmers around the plantation area. Countries or plantations can choose or provide seeds and fertilizers which serve as agricultural biotechnology trials. It is not uncommon to locate specific agricultural products that come from state-owned plantation lands; like coffee and lemongrass as raw materials to perfume.
In such a situation, what happens is that competition in seeds and fertilizers market does not occur at the national or global level. With the state opening broad access to agricultural innovation, this battle also reaches the provincial and even local domain, that is, in every village. We need to revise the arguments of Chayanovian rational choice carefully. This is essential if the opening of the seed and fertilizer market by various companies aims to afford free choice for farmers to develop profit margins from their land. This will only happen if farmers still have independence in managing and storing seeds or fertilizer. But now, rational choices based on such arguments have faded. Farmers in rural areas of Java only have a rational choice from what has been given by the legal companies. They no longer serve as a producer who inherits trade rights to its offspring through the seeds they store. Rather, they