
Fortress Farming
Agrarian Transitions, Livelihoods, and Coffee Value Chains in Indonesia
Jeff Neilson(Author)
Cornell University Press
Published on 15. May 2025
Book
Hardback
306 pages
978-1-5017-8091-2 (ISBN)
Description
Fortress Farming identifies in Indonesia's rural coffee-growing regions an alternative livelihood strategy that is reshaping relationships with land and informing Indonesia's agrarian transition. Jeff Neilson presents "fortress farming" households as ones that are reluctant to embrace productivity-maximizing agriculture, even as they interact with commodity markets and powerful downstream companies. Rather, these households tenaciously maintain access to land as a last defense against insecurity in a precarious global economy, all the while actively tapping into off-farm income sources. Fortress farming confounds assumptions that the development process entails an inevitable transition away from the land and into city-based manufacturing.
Shifting away from production to take a fuller view of rural Indonesian coffee-growing communities, Fortress Farming explores how and why defensive farming strategies have emerged, and what these tendencies mean for our understanding of agrarian transition in late-industrializing countries in the early twenty-first century. Neilson posits that late-industrializing countries may never undergo a full agrarian transition: In the alternative livelihood practice of fortress farming, we see a way that local social institutions can resist, or at least modify, the productive forces of capitalist agriculture.
Shifting away from production to take a fuller view of rural Indonesian coffee-growing communities, Fortress Farming explores how and why defensive farming strategies have emerged, and what these tendencies mean for our understanding of agrarian transition in late-industrializing countries in the early twenty-first century. Neilson posits that late-industrializing countries may never undergo a full agrarian transition: In the alternative livelihood practice of fortress farming, we see a way that local social institutions can resist, or at least modify, the productive forces of capitalist agriculture.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Ithaca
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Product notice
Paper over boards
Illustrations
39 b&w halftones, 6 maps, 2 diagrams, 12 charts - 6 Maps - 39 Halftones, black and white - 12 Charts - 2 Diagrams
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Weight
907 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5017-8091-2 (9781501780912)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Jeff Neilson
Fortress Farming
Agrarian Transitions, Livelihoods, and Coffee Value Chains in Indonesia
E-Book
05/2025
Cornell University Press
€26.49
Available for download
Person
Jeff Neilson is Associate Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Sydney. He is the coauthor of Value Chain Struggles and the coeditor of Global Value Chains and Global Production Networks.
Content
Introduction: Fortress Farming and Indonesian Coffee
1. Agrarian Change and Livelihoods in a World of GlobalValue Chains
2. Agrarian Transitions and Structural Transformation of the Indonesian Economy
3. The Indonesian State and Rural Patronage
4. Global Capital and the Organization of Coffee Value Chains
5. Institutions of Land Access
6. Fortress Farming in Toraja
7. Fortress Farming in Semende
Conclusion: Fortress Farming and the Politics of Land in Late-Industrializing Countries
1. Agrarian Change and Livelihoods in a World of GlobalValue Chains
2. Agrarian Transitions and Structural Transformation of the Indonesian Economy
3. The Indonesian State and Rural Patronage
4. Global Capital and the Organization of Coffee Value Chains
5. Institutions of Land Access
6. Fortress Farming in Toraja
7. Fortress Farming in Semende
Conclusion: Fortress Farming and the Politics of Land in Late-Industrializing Countries