Tea smallholder livelihood development in cijulang village

Sustainability Livelihoods Approach is an approach used to measure households’ attempts to sustain their livelihoods. One of the livelihoods currently facing problems is that of tea smallholders. Tea plantations managed individually by farmers are phenomena to be found in several districts in West Java, one of which is the District of Sukabumi. As tea plantation holders the farmers also have several other livelihoods. This research aims to determine the pattern of development of livelihoods of the tea smallholders’ household by asset. The weighting of each asset the SLA is carried out based on the geography of the research location. Data collection is conducted through in-depth interviews with pre-determined informants. As households whose livelihoods come from primary economic activities, natural asset ownership is highly important. Households with high natural asset are always followed by high financial asset ownership. Meanwhile, high physical asset is followed by advantageous human asset. This enables farmers to develop various economic activities in the village in order to sustain their tea plantation production. However, tea smallholders with low natural asset face difficulties in diversifying economic activities in the village. Based on these facts, the conclusion of this research shows that the sustainability of tea plantation highly relies on ownership of natural assets in the form of the size of the plantation area.