Avocado Plantation and the True Agrarian Reform Academy: Steps of Surya Kencana Sukabumi (PPSS) Farmers in Fighting for Land for the People

The Suryakencana Sukabumi Farmers' Brotherhood (PPSS) is a farming community in Langensari Village, Sukaraja District, Sukabumi Regency, which has been fighting since 1948 to defend their residential and cultivated land. The 112-hectare cultivated land managed by 360 households is still in conflict with the former PTPN 8. Despite facing various forms of intimidation and threats of criminalization, PPSS continues to move.

The farming community wants the government to immediately recognize the rights to their cultivated land. Because the cultivated land is the only main source of their livelihood as farmers who have been cultivated for generations. As part of the effort to strengthen the struggle for communal rights to land, PPSS with the support of the Nusantara Fund Direct Funding, initiated the True Agrarian Reform Academy (ARAS) training and collective avocado business.

The ARAS training was designed to improve the understanding and capacity of 50 farmer community cadres consisting of 30 men and 20 women. Participants came from the ranks of administrators, youth groups, and women farmers who are members of PPSS. Training materials include agrarian reform, agrarian law, advocacy, DaMaRa (Advanced Village for Agrarian Reform), and organizational management. With this training, PPSS strengthens and adds to the ranks of cadres who are able to fight for land rights strategically and in an organized manner.

In addition to agrarian education, PPSS also made efforts to strengthen the organization, through collective efforts to cultivate avocados on 10 hectares of cultivated land in Langensari Village. Avocados were chosen because they have high economic value and their benefits in increasing the cover of cultivated land. Planting avocados not only helps rehabilitate the land, but also becomes real evidence that the community is able to manage the land productively and sustainably.

Thus, PPSS wants to show the government that the collective management they run is not only for the benefit of a few people, but is directly beneficial for the welfare of farmers while protecting the environment. PPSS's struggle is proof that the farming community has the capacity to manage resources sustainably and independently.

Through this series of activities, the True Agrarian Reform Academy creates cadres who are more prepared in agrarian advocacy, while avocado cultivation provides sustainable economic opportunities for farmers. With this approach, PPSS has succeeded in strengthening the solidarity, solidity, and economic welfare of the farming community, strengthening PPSS's steps forward in fighting for land rights for the people.