Social Class and Ecological Changes Following the Integrated Farming System in Kalimantan’s Peatlands

Dina Melisa Hardiyanti (Regional Secretariat of Kapuas Regency, Indonesia)

Jurnal Ilmu Sosial dan Ilmu Politik
Vol 30, No 1 (2026): July

To achieve sustainability in the agricultural sector, policies based on the integrated farming system (IFS) concept claim to promote innovations that can be applied in villages with low soil fertility. Current research on IFS is largely focused on developing technology that supports IFS model farming to be more environmentally friendly, to produce higher quality food, and to increase economic returns from resulting products. Previous academic studies have only examined the impacts of IFS on farmers, who are treated as a homogenous entity. By investigating the IFS programme in rural Kalimantan, with its peat and acidic environmental conditions, this article shows that while IFS has successfully brought about environmental transformation, for the better, it fails to address social inequalities that persist in rural settings. IFS has only benefited certain social actors, such as capitalist farmers and most village officials. As long as there is no overhaul of the existing social inequalities, the IFS concept will fail to create sustainable agriculture.