By CASSANDRA NELSON
The village of Peunaga Cut Ujong suffered
massive destruction from the tsunami that struck Aceh in December 2004.
Like so many other villages built along the coast of Indonesia, their rice
fields, a major source of livelihoods for the community, were left submerged
under several feet of sea water and littered with wreckage and corpses.
Many farmers and agricultural specialists (both local and international) declared these rice fields destroyed and unfit for planting for years to come. But now, just eight months later, the local farmers are preparing for a harvest they never imagined possible.
In fact, farmers in the area reported that this harvest may actually be better than harvests in previous years.
"Compared to before the tsunami, the rice is growing better now. It is growing faster. It has been fertilized by the tsunami," says one farmer in the area who lost five family members in the tsunami. "It should be a full harvest and better than before."
The road to reviving the rice paddies was not easy. The tsunami devastated rice production in Aceh on several fronts. Fields were left littered with debris. Irrigation ditches were filled with rubble or were destroyed by the force of the wave, and deposits of sand and silt were left in the fields when the wave receded.
In addition, carefully husbanded rice seed stock was destroyed, as were the tractors and tools the farmers used for cultivation. Concerns about soil salinity and its effect on future rice production left many farmers fearing they would never be able farm their lands again.
In the face of such daunting challenges, Mercy Corps took the lead from rice farming communities who expressed a wish to return to rice production and to attempt to cultivate their land in time for the next planting season, which ran from April to May.
In early March, Mercy Corps began working in six villages with 350 rice-dependent households. The project began with a rice field assessment of over 263 hectares of land to identify which fields were irretrievably lost due to sand deposits and those that might be able to be salvaged.
A massive cash-for-work program ensued, during which farmers were paid to clear their fields and irrigation ditches of debris and ready the land for planting. Then, with another grant from Mercy Corps, special rice seed varieties were procured as well as tools, tractors, plows and other necessary resources.
Mercy Corps is now conducting additional research based on soil testing over time to ascertain some baseline data for the impact of tsunami-induced soil salinity and its affect on rice yields.
Today, after months of emotionally and physically challenging work, the farmers of Meulaboh are harvesting the first post-tsunami rice fields.