Food Sovereignty: A Preserved Tradition in Sepanggang Village, Ketapang 

Balako which means farming in the Dayak Krio language is a tradition that has been passed down from generation to generation from our ancestors. Balako For the Krio Dayak Indigenous Community, farming is synonymous with dry land or dry land. In local language, it means cultivating forests or bawas which had previously been used as fields to be planted with rice again. Tradition balako This area is filled with local wisdom, traditions, and traditional rituals that are always maintained, implemented, and preserved, starting from the process of finding land. (listen to Mangui), weeding (nobakng nobas), burning (appears), cleaning up wood residue from burning (marorak), planting (nugal), maintenance and weeding (grazing), pause until harvest (ngamongakng), harvest (ngotapm), pounding new rice (newborn) and thanksgiving after the harvest (kolatn kamut and kolatn kabaruun), This cycle continues year after year throughout the generations.

According to stories from our ancestors, in the past the harvest from balako This is very abundant every year. Jurung Or the rice storage area is always full. It even has to be stored at home. We've never heard of a family running out of rice. Instead, we always have a surplus until the next harvest season.

The current situation is the opposite: few families are able to independently meet their rice needs. This is due to inadequate harvests due to weather factors that cause shifts in planting and harvesting seasons, as well as other factors such as the influx of large-scale palm oil plantation investments, which have resulted in increasingly limited land available for cultivation. balakoIndigenous communities are forced to purchase rice produced outside their traditional territories, having no choice but to pay high prices to meet their families' basic food needs.

The Abur Katap Indigenous Community Business Group (KUMA) located in Botung Keramat Singa Pating, Sepanggang Village, Benua Krio Village, Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan, took the initiative to re-practice balako in rice fields or wetlands which in the local language are called ash. This effort is one way to restore traditions that guarantee the food sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples. Their initiative to do so bored or practice balako The wetland cultivation technique was inspired by the Laman Indigenous Community in Menyumbung, Hulu Sungai Tengah District. Menyumbung has successfully harvested twice a year using this technique. bored chosen because it fits the land conditions currently available in Sepanggang.

Their initiative began with preparing 1,5 hectares of land by clearing the land, constructing ditches and drainage channels, and constructing embankments around the managed plot. The planting phase involved procuring local seedlings combined with foreign seedlings, followed by sowing. Next, plant maintenance involved clearing weeds, clearing ditches, and controlling pests. In their initial practice, the process was not without challenges. Just as the rice was beginning to bear fruit, a flood occurred, the largest in the community's history. Eventually, all the rice was submerged for several days, leaving the grains empty. Furthermore, there was an infestation of birds that ate the rice that was bearing fruit.

The stage that KUMA members are most looking forward to is the harvest or ngotapm. The first harvest was sufficient to meet the consumption needs of KUMA members and some of the harvest was also left over as seeds or brazier in the next planting season. Practice bored While this technique is still rarely practiced in Sepanggang, it offers a viable solution, allowing for two harvests per year. This practice needs to be expanded and intensified. Learning from KUMA Abur Katap has elicited a positive response from members of the Indigenous Community in Sepanggang Village. Now, in addition to KUMA Abur Katap, two other farming groups have expressed interest in implementing it.