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Pekarangan () is a type of tropical Forest gardening developed in Indonesia, mainly in Java. In addition to plants, pekarangans may contain animals (including Fish farming, , poultry, and Wildlife) and structures such as pens and bird cages. The gardens provide food, income, and Ornamental plant, while also supporting social interaction, food sharing, Ceremony, and Religion. Some pekarangans are made, maintained, and spatially arranged according to local values. The first mention of pekarangan is found in a Javanese chronicle that was written in 860 AD. In 2010, around of Indonesian land were used for gardens of this sort.
The sustainability and social roles of pekarangans have been threatened by commercialization of its crops, mass urbanization, and land fragmentation. These factors led to a loss of Biodiversity within the gardens, which consequently reduce the gardens' sustainability. The reduced sustainability of the gardens play a part in causing problems such as pest outbreaks and a rise in Household debt.
Throughout the history of Java, pekarangans have been of little interest to its rulers that have ruled the island due to their minimal susceptibility to agricultural tax-in-kind. In the 2010s, they have gained the attention of the Indonesian government through P2KP (Percepatan Penganekaragaman Konsumsi Pangan), a program focused on Urban area and peri-urban areas that aims to optimize production with a sustainable approach.
Scholars offer various definitions of the term "pekarangan". According to Sajogyo, it is a plot adjacent to a house, cultivated on a part-time basis. Totok Mardikanto and Sri Sutami define it as a plot surrounding a house; most of its kind are fenced, and usually planted with dense plants with various annual and perennial plants for daily and commercial use. Euis Novitasari considers "pekarangan" to be a form of land use: a system of small-scale additional food production by members and a family, that is also an ecosystem with a densely layered canopy. Further, she describes it as having a clear boundary and containing elements such as the owner's house, a kitchen, a pen, and fences. Simatupang and Suryana argue that it is hard to define "pekarangan" clearly, since its role can vary as a form of farmland to a homestead plot. Rahu et al. interpret "pekarangan" as, specifically, a Javanese home garden.
In Sundanese people pekarangans, ornamental plants tend to be placed in front of the house, while crops such as , oranges, and are frequently planted in the front yard for the homeowners to see. Starch crops, medicinal plants, and are more frequent in the front and back plots, and less in the side plots. Coffee bean plants might be used as a hedge in the side and back yards; ornamental plants might have a similar function in front yards. Vegetables are habitually grown in front and side areas to be exposed to light, as tall trees are rare in those areas. Trees with large canopies might be planted in front yards, providing shade for children. Coconuts, fruit trees, and tall trees whose woods are used for construction are planted in back gardens to avoid damage to the house when any of them falls due to a storm. Most plants propagate without intentional human intervention—this natural process is called janteun ku anjeun in Sundanese—due to Seed dispersal by birds, mammals, or humans after they eat. Because of this, no clear spatial arrangement is found in Sundanese back gardens.
Plants in Javanese and Sundanese pekarangans—especially annual plants grown in the dry season (e.g. )—are habitually grown near water sources such as fish ponds, open sewage ditches, and wells. Plants that need high levels of nutrients, such as banana, mango, jackfruit, and other fruit plants, are planted close to garbage dumps. Meanwhile, crops frequently harvested for cooking, such as , Alpinia galanga, lemongrass, and , are planted near the kitchen.
Pekarangans in Borneo contain fewer exotic species than pekarangans in other regions of Indonesia. Many of their plants are native to Borneo. Among the plants in Bornean pekarangans that are considered economically and ecologically crucial are durians ( Durio zibethinus, Durio kutejensis), jackfruits ( Artocarpus heterophyllus), langsat ( Lansium domesticum), and rambutan ( Nephelium lappaceum).
The gardens may have a high diversity of soil fauna. According to Widyastuti, the soil fauna diversity in the gardens is suggested to be higher than that of teak forests. The diversity might be caused by the vegetation, which protects soil fauna from direct sunshine, especially in the dry season. Otto Soemarwoto and Gordon Conway wrote that the gardens are also believed to be "a good habitat" for and .
Researchers found opposing findings on the conservation of wild birds in pekarangans. A high diversity of birds, including legally protected species, within the gardens were recorded in a West Java research while another study in Jambi suggests individual pekarangans are not effective as a means to conserve bird communities. This is because of the edge effects of their irregular shapes, their frequent disturbance, and their proximity to roads and houses. The pekarangans used for the Jambi study had unusually low levels of plant diversity, which may account for the results. Despite this, the gardens apparently still attract birds due to their food resources.
The diversity of plants aids individual plants to adapt to a changing environment, helping them survive in the long term. The biodiversity in the multi-layered system also helps to optimize solar energy and carbon harvesting, cool the domestic climate, protect the soil from erosion, and accommodate habitats for wild plants and animals. The Genetics diversity also gives protection from the effects of pests and diseases. As an example, the abundance of insectivorous birds in the gardens helps control pests, helping the garden remain productive.
While on per individual basis pekarangans store only small amounts of carbon due to their size, on per area basis they hold an amount of carbon that is similar to primary or secondary forests, and greatly surpassing Imperata grasslands and .
Pekarangans at high tend to have a smaller size, increased density of plants, and a smaller range of plant diversity. As altitude increases, temperature decreases, limiting plant diversity. Coconuts and fruit trees tend to develop better in lower-altitude pekarangans while vegetables tend to grow better at higher altitudes.
Pekarangans with better access to water—either by climate or by proximity to water resources—are able to facilitate annual crop cultivation. Those in West Java, when observed, perform better in accommodating plant diversity when the wet season occurs than in the dry season. The climatic conditions of Java enable the consistent growth of annual plants in its pekarangans, even in parts of East Java where the climate is drier.
Canopy in those gardens functions as a protection from intense raindrops. Most of their plants' heights are less than a meter, slowing down raindrops when they hit the soil. Leaf litter also helps protecting the soil against erosion. The role of plant canopies in consistently producing organic litter is believed to be more important in reducing erosion than its direct speed-reducing effects on raindrops. Nevertheless, gardens are less effective than natural forests in erosion reduction.
Settlement dynamics affect pekarangans in various ways. Expansion of settlements to new lands, caused by population growth, is the cause of the wide presence of food crops in newly made pekarangans. People who resettled via the Indonesian transmigration program might support plant diversity in the gardens in the places they migrate to. Plant species brought by internal migrants need to adapt well to the local environment.
Commercialization, fragmentation, and urbanization are major hazards to pekarangans' plant diversity. These change the organic cycles within the gardens, threatening their ecological sustainability. Commercialization requires a systemic change of crop planting. To optimize and produce more crops, a pekarangan's owner must specialize in its crops, making a small number of crops dominate the garden. Some owners turn them into monoculture gardens. Fragmentation stems from the traditional system of inheritance. Consequences from the reduction of plant diversity include the loss of canopy structures and organic litter, resulting in less protection of the gardens' soil; loss of pest-control agents, increasing the use of pesticides; loss of production stability; loss of nutrients' diversity; and the disappearance of food sharing culture. Despite urbanization's negative effect in reducing pekarangans' plant diversity, it increases the diversity of the gardens' .
A case study of home gardens in Bada Valley, Central Sulawesi, shows that the decrease in soil protection is caused by insufficient soil fertility management, regular Weed control and waste burning, dumping waste in garbage pits instead of using it for compost, and spread of inorganic waste. The decrease of soil fertility worsens the decrease of crop diversity in the gardens.
Lower-income families tend to consume more Leaf vegetable than wealthier families, due to their consistent availability and low price. Low-income families also favor bigger use of fuel sources from the gardens. Pekarangans in villages act as subsistence systems for families rather than an income source. In areas such as Gunung Kidul, food-producing uses of the gardens are more dominant than crop fields due to soil erosion in these regions.
According to a 1991 article, the poor cultivate subsistence plants in their pekarangans with an emphasis on fruits and vegetables, while the rich tend to plant more ornamental plants and cash crops with higher economic value. An article from 2006 also concludes that the importance of commercial plants increases with owners' wealth. A study in Sriharjo, Yogyakarta Special Region, concludes that poorer pekarangan owners orient toward commercial uses while richer owners orient toward subsistence uses. Ann Stoler argued that as a rural family acquire more area of rice field, garden use becomes less intense, up until the family-owned rice field reach around , the minimal size typically needed to feed one family. Past this point, garden use starts to increase.
In a 2004 report, Javanese pekarangans are suggested to have higher net income-per-area than rice fields. The same report argued that the cost of the Javanese gardens' production is lower than that of rice fields. People who focus on the gardens' production instead of rice fields may gain better yields than their counterparts. Poor villagers, however, tend not to concentrate efforts toward the gardens; maintenance of the gardens as a sole income source would require the use of high-risk, high-reward crops, more intensive care, and income would be vulnerable to market fluctuations. Maintenance of diverse cash crops is more intense than that of rice fields and the intensity would make the villagers' gardening schedule less adaptable to rice farming activities.
In some cases, people are allowed to build houses in the pekarangans of others in exchange for doing work for the land owners. The gardens, however, tend to have a low demand for labor, offering minimal labor opportunities.
Javanese culture interpreted the gardens as pepek ing karang—"a complete design". It can also be interpreted as pepek teng karangan, which according to the anthropologist Oekan Abdoellah, is a way of thinking, indicating agricultural practices within the gardens are a consequence of thinking about the ways to use their produce and satisfy their needs from them. The words within the pepek teng karangan phrase can also be translated individually: pepek means 'complete', teng means 'on', while karangan means 'idea'. This is similar to the Sundanese breakdown of the word pekarangan: pe- is a prefix that means 'place', karang means 'idea', and the combination of these can be loosely translated as 'a place to create ideas'. Javanese culture, however, takes offense at the gardens' comparison with forests due to the low social value of forest in the culture. Wayang puppet plays depict forests as "places where wild animals and evil spirits reign" and its clearing, which is done only by men who are believed to have spiritual powers, is viewed as a respectable deed. The backyard of a Sundanese homestead is described as supados sungkur (to be unseen by others).
Plant community in Javanese pekarangans tend to be more complex than those in Sundanese pekarangans. In Javanese gardens, owners also tend to cultivate medicinal plants ( jamu) while the Sundanese tend to grow vegetables and ornamental plants.
The Sundanese language has names for each part of a pekarangan. The front yard is called buruan, a space for a garden shed, ornamental plants, fruit trees, a children's playground, benches, and crop-drying. The side yard ( pipir) is used for wood trees, crops, medicinal herbs, a fish pond, well, and a bathroom. The side yard is also a space for cloth-dying. The back yard ( kebon) is used to cultivate vegetable plants, spice plants, an animal pent, and industrial plants.
Food crops (especially fruits) are the most common plants found in taneyan lanjhang gardens. The gardens may have a higher number of species within the legume family (Fabaceae), ginger family (Zingiberaceae), gourd family (Cucurbitaceae), and citrus family (Rutaceae), compared to other plant families. Among the gardens' most common plants are bananas, mangoes, maize, , and bamboos (specifically Bambusa glaucescens).
Plants in such gardens can be generally divided into three categories. Medicinal and aromatic plants are not cultivated in one defined area; each species occupies its own designated plot. Some plants of this kind (such as Aglaia odorata, Lawsonia inermis, Coleus scutellarioides, and Kalanchoe laciniata) are planted at the sides of rumah gadang entrance stairs. Others are planted elswhere: Jasmine at the bottom of house windows, Pomegranate and Magnolia in the front and/or back of anjuang ( rumah gadang wing rooms), and Cananga odorata on side yards. Ornamental plants (such as Murraya paniculata, Cordyline fruticosa, and crotons) tend to be planted in all sides of the rumah gadang compound in the style of multi-layered plant fences. Spices (such as Caryota mitis and Elephantopus scaber) are planted in a parak (household smallholding).
Plants within a pekarangan rumah gadang are integral parts within Minangkabau customs and cultural wisdom. Crotons can be interpreted as a symbol of "talking manners," depicting the difference of communication between conjugal and extended family members. Aromatic plants such as jasmines are believed to "dispel satan and Jinn from a house". Lanjuang ( C. fruticosa) leaves are traditionally used as a sign of invitation to attend a wedding reception or a funeral by placing a lanjuang leaf on the invitee's house gate. Sugarcanes are utilized in mamanisi anak, a traditional rite to celebrate a newborn baby.
Hardscapes that are normally present in the pekarangan rumah gadang include rangkiang (rice silo), ponds, and pens. Randi Reimena of Haluanpadang.com, quoting writer Pinto Anugrah, wrote that rangkiang is "an inseparable part of rumah gadang; traditionally, a rumah gadang without rangkiang is impossible". Ponds are typically placed in any part of the pekarangan, and usually contain fishes such as Nile tilapia, Common carp, Catfish, and Channa striata. Pens, generally made for chickens and ducks, are placed beside or behind the rumah gadang.
Pekarangans of other ethnic groups in Indonesia have other names, including passiring and terampak benua in Bugis culture, as well as tarampak and pa'palakan in Torajan people culture. Pekarangans are also integrated in local, community-level agroforestry systems, such as kaleka in Dayak people households of Borneo.
| West Java-Banten | 52.29% | 25.00% | 8.77% | 8.95% |
| Central Java | 27.50% | 27.57% | 13.20% | 31.73% |
| East Java | 34.52% | 25.83% | 13.33% | 31.73% |
| Special Region of Yogyakarta | 33.51% | 17.48% | 14.61% | 34.40% |
| Source: Arifin, Kaswanto & Nakagoshi 2014 | ||||
Soemarwoto and Conway stated that the first-known record of them is a Javanese charter from 860. Central Java is considered the pekarangans' center of origin, according to Oekan Abdoellah et al.; the gardens later spread to East Java in the twelfth century. During the Dutch colonial era, pekarangans were referred to as erfcultuur. In the eighteenth century, Javanese pekarangans had already so influenced West Java that they had partly replaced talun (a local form of mixed gardens) there. Since pekarangans contain many species, which mature at different times throughout the year, it has been difficult for governments throughout Javanese history to tax them systematically. In 1990, this difficulty caused the Indonesian government to forbid the reduction of rice fields in favor of pekarangans. Such difficulty might have helped the gardens to become more complex over time. Despite that, past governments still tried to tax the gardens.
Since the early 2010s, the government, through the Ministry of Agriculture, runs a pekarangan development initiative named Percepatan Penganekaragaman Konsumsi Pangan (P2KP, "Acceleration on Food Diversification") that is focused in urban and semi-urban areas. The program applies its agenda to a concept named Kawasan Rumah Pangan Lestari (KRPL; "Sustainable Food Houses Region"). P2KP was begun under the Indonesian Presidential Regulation No. 22 Year 2009. There is also an urban women-focused program named Gerakan Perempuan untuk Optimalisasi Pekarangan (GPOP; "Women's Movement for Pekarangan Optimization").
In addition to the national programs, some regions of Indonesia have implemented their own pekarangan use programs. The government of East Java launched a program called Rumah Hijau ("Green House") in 2010. The provincial government later collaborated with the Ministry of Agriculture to improve upon the Rumah Hijau program based on KRPL prototypes in Pacitan, making a new program named Rumah Hijau Plus-Plus.
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