Rejection of Young Farmers to the Government Resettlement Programme : The Case of Young Farmers Who Migrated to Urban Informal Sectors in Jakarta, Indonesia

More and more rural young people have left their farming work to go to cities. Access to farming land is indicated as one of the major drivers for young people to leave farming work. Higher income, easier access and flexible work mobility particularly in urban informal sectors are indicated as the allure. Their decision to leave their farming work will weaken the country food security in the future. The Indonesian government under the transmigration programme has a plan to return these people back to rural farming work but not in their origin village. The plan is to resettled these people to outer islands of Sumatera, Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua which located thousands kilometers away from their own village. This research investigated why these young farmers rejected the transmigration programme. The researcher interviewed 20 young people of ages between 19 and 29 years old who mostly work as informal workers (porter) at a vegetables and fruits wholesale market in Kramat Jati East Jakarta, Indonesia. One empirical findings from this research is that all 20 young people interviewed (all of whom lack access to land in their respective villages) rejected the transmigration programme mostly because the transmigration are too far and too remote from their villages in Java that would make the transportation cost very high if they want to return to their respective villages. Another empirical finding also shows found out that these young people re-ceived better income in Jakarta, above city’s minimum wages of formal work-ers – which is one the highest minimum wages in Indonesia. They also enjoyed their work due to its flexible working hours and work mobility, and easiness to secure employment and resign that will help them a lot whenever they want to return to meet their families. Those factors are believed to contribute to the rejection of the transmigration programme.