The debt trap of seaweed farmers: a case study from Bajo Community in Bungin Permai, Indonesia

Abstract

Seaweed farming is an important livelihood in coastal areas in Indonesia. This activity is the only cash source for farmer’s daily needs. Nevertheless, they still suffer due to their lifestyle such as debt trap. This study aimed to describe the debt trap in seaweed farmers living in Bungin Permai village, Tinanggea district, South Konawe, SE Sulawesi, Indonesia. This study was done using a survey method. Structured questionnaire and in-depth interviews were done with a series of livelihood household surveys for randomly selected 98 respondents working as seaweed farmers. From this study, it was found that debt is their lifestyle. It was caused by their simple lifestyle. They always consider that the high fisheries resources from farming and fishing activities can maintain their daily life. Their expenditures are more than they can afford, especially on non-food and social expenditures (extravagant lifestyle). In addition, they mostly do not prefer to save their money in bank. Therefore, the only way to meet their daily needs is by borrowing from their middlemen.

Structural modeling of Sama Bajo fishers social resilience in a marine national park

“…Nevertheless, while the crew (S awi ) of the Punggawa are laboring directly for their patrons, the semi-independent fisher is, thus, somewhat better off in terms of income, autonomy, and a sense of well-being than the Sawi (McWilliam et al 2021 ; Stacey et al 2018 ). The indebtedness is also found in the Sama Bajo livelihood which relates to aquaculture, for instance in seaweed cultivation social relations (Aslan et al 2022 ). The results are interesting and help to justify how to measure as well as improve the social resilience capacity of the boat-dwellers communities in the marine preserve area.…”