SOUTH KULAWI, Indonesia — In a forested valley in the interior of Sulawesi Island, Elisabet Heta gathers up a clutch of farming tools used by the Moa Indigenous people and leaves home. “I want to go to the pampa,” Elisabet told Mongabay Indonesia, before the mother of four set out for the fields here in Sigi district, Central Sulawesi province. Echoing the protocol of several Indigenous societies in the world’s largest archipelagic nation, the Moa of Indonesia include matrilineal traditions that confer greater agency on women like Elisabet than in many male-dominated households. Central Sulawesi’s Moa women are their community’s farmers-in-chief, with domain over the customary land where food is grown. Every family here retains a 300-square-meter (3,200-square-foot) pampa, or smallholding dedicated for the Moa women, Elisabet said. The role of the pampa fields is to provide every household with vegetables, tubers, nuts, corn and chili, the latter commonly known in this part of Sulawesi as rica. Supply and demand for seedlings in the community is regulated among families informally via barter. “Because the harvest is only to meet the family’s food needs, it means selection of seed types is always balanced to the needs of each family,” Elisabet said. The role of the pampa fields is to provide every household with vegetables, tubers, nuts, corn and chili. Image by Sarjan Lahay/Mongabay Indonesia. Women are the primary stakeholders for food, but an adjacent cash economy is run by men growing cacao and coffee for sale in nearby supply chains. For…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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