RICE FARMING IN BALI

Abstract

All is not well with agriculture in Southeast Asia. The productivity gains of the Green Revolution have slowed and even reversed and environmental problems and shortages of water and land are evident. At the same time changing world markets are shifting the dynamics of national agricultural economies. But from the point of view of farmers themselves, it is their season-to-season economic survival that is at stake. Bali is in some ways typical of other agricultural areas in the region, but it is also a special case because of its distinctive economic and cultural environment dominated by tourism. In this environment, farmers are doubly marginalized. At the same time the island offers them unique market opportunities for premium and organic produce. This article examines the ways in which these opportunities have been approached and describes their varying degrees of success. It focuses especially on one project that has been successful in reducing production costs by conversion to organic production, but less so in marketing its produce. It argues finally for the need for integrated studies of the entire rice production/marketing complex, especially from the bottom-up point of view of farmers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This article is based on regular research in Bali since 1993, with a specific focus on agriculture since 2003. Research was facilitated initially by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and Udayana University and has been assisted financially by Auckland and Massey Universities. I amgrateful to all the friends and colleagues mentioned here (especially Alit Arthawiguna), to countless anonymous farmers, to Stephan Lorenzen for insightful feedback on a draft of this article, and to CAS editor Tom Fenton for editorial rigor beyond the call of duty.

Notes

¹See, for example, Pingali, Hossain, and Gerpacio 1997; and Gerard and Ruf 2001.

²MacRae 2005 (Growing).

³Hefner 2009, 337.

⁴Piggot et al.1993, 82, 89.

⁵Ibid., 86.

⁶The reasons for this decline in productivity are in fact considerably more complex then this simplified sketch would suggest, but it is a sufficient generalization for our purposes here. For a more detailed analysis, see Dawe 2002; Fane andWarr 2008; Simatupang and Timmer 2008; Piggot et al. 1993; Damarjati et al. 1989. For accounts of the Green Revolution on the neighboring islands of Lombok and Java, see Cederroth and Gerdin 1986; and Cederroth 1995. On Bali, see Lansing 1991; and Poffenberger and Zurbachen 1980.

⁷Sunari is a pseudonym and this account is an edited summary from my field notes based on two hearings of the story in May–June 2009. Pak Sunari also works in the local office of the Department of Agriculture and this may to some extent account for his uncommon ability to analyze his hands-on experience.

⁸He did not mention the reason for this change, but it may have had to do with a combination of increased demand and improved irrigation, both within a wider context of a national drive toward economic self-sufficiency.

⁹The IR prefix is a standard terminology of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) in the Philippines, which with financial support from government, academic, and international organizations has led global rice research and development since the 1960s.

¹⁰These pesticides are synthetic organic (i.e., carbon-based) chloride phosphate and carbamate compounds that multinational chemical companies developed in the 1950s. They were widely used through the 1970s, but are now banned in many countries because of their dangerous toxicity to non-target species, including humans.

¹¹This correlation between pesticide use and frequency of pests is consistent with reports from elsewhere in Indonesia. See Winarto 1999, 166.

¹²Covarrubias 1994, 403.

¹³The group included a Balinese agricultural scientist Dr. Alit Arthawiguna and some of his colleagues, Australian researchers Rachael and Stefan Lorenzen, an Israeli expatriate Oded Karmi and his Balinese partners Ni Nila and I Jabu, who produce and market organic vegetables and rice for sale through networks of local expatriate consumers.

¹⁴This project is discussed in more detail in MacRae 2005 (Anthropologist).

¹⁵ Subak is a traditional local organization concerned primarily with irrigation and the ritual aspects of rice production.

¹⁶Many researchers have warned about the dangers of generalizations in Bali, but in this matter the pattern is almost universal, at least inmyexperience, which is largely in the southern half of the island. My generalizations also refer specifically to farmers of irrigated rice. Dry-field farmers, especially market gardeners in the mountains, have long shown themselves to be considerably more flexible and innovative. See MacRae 2005 (Growing).

¹⁷Suparmoko 2002, 6.

¹⁸For an example, in relation to pest management, see Winarto 1999, 174–75.

¹⁹Available online at www.idepfoundation.org/ (accessed 21 April 2010). Permaculture is a generic term, but also a brand name, for a systematization of traditional techniques and philosophies of sustainable agriculture and human settlements, see www.permaculture.org/ nm/index.php/site/index/ (accessed 11 May 2010). SRI (System of Rice Intensification) is likewise a brand name for a set of techniques for improving yields of modern rice varieties. See ciifad.cornell.edu/sri/ (accessed 13 June 2010). SRI leans toward, but is not totally dependent on organic practices.

²⁰See www.trihitakaranabali.com (accessed 9 December 2009).

²¹See, for example, Dinas Pertanian 2004; and Erviani 2009.

²²The farmers later found out that their supposedly organic fertilizer contained large amount of nonorganic rubbish such as fragments of plastic packaging.

²³P.T. Sang Hyang Seri (named for the goddess who dwells in the rice plant) is a large (Java-wide) commercial supplier of seed and fertilizers. See www.shs-seed.com/index.php (accessed 13 June 2010).

²⁴All crop yields are expressed in metric tons and refer, unless otherwise noted, to gabah kering panen, i.e., the crop harvested, threshed, and dried, but not yet milled.

²⁵This was probably influenced by Integrated Pest Management (IPM) propagated by the government through the 1990s, largely in response to ongoing failures and emerging environment and health consequences of indiscriminate petrochemical pesticide use. See Winarto 1999, 163.

²⁶The main predators of rodents are snakes, owls, and cats, both domestic and wild, all of which are plentiful in residual forest areas.

²⁷My knowledge of this project comes largely from multiple annual visits, in May–June or July–August, and usually accompanying Alit Arthawiguna on working visits. While these have often involved lengthy meetings at Wangaya Betan, the visits have also offered opportunities for lengthy conversations en route. I amgrateful to Alit, Nengah, and many the other people involved, both named and unnamed. For a more complete, but differently angled discussion of this project, see Arthawiguna and MacRae 2010.

²⁸BPTB (Balai Pengkajian Teknologi Pertanian) is a national government agricultural research institute with a local branch in Denpasar. The technical details of this research and its outcomes are documented in Arthawiguna 2007.

²⁹Subak Wangaya Betan is in a village of the same name, at the upper end of the Yeh Ho watershed in Tabanan district of western-south Bali. The project is reasonably well known in Bali and beyond and has already been the subject of publication (e.g., MacRae and Arthawiguna 2010), so it and key people involved are identified by name.

³⁰I was a member of this group along with Australian researcher Rachel Lorenzen.

³¹Starbio is one of a number of propriety products increasingly used in Indonesian agriculture. For activating compost and rendering coarse vegetable materials more digestible for livestock, see MacRae 2005 (Growing). They are based on ferments of sugar products and work as starters for fermentation of larger bodies of organic material. See www.lembahhijau.com/product.htm (accessed 13 June 2010).

³²Farmers throughout Indonesia often use less than the recommended amounts of fertilizer, primarily as a cost-saving measure, a practice that began with the reduction of government subsidies in 1987 and increased with their total withdrawal in 1998 (Arifin 2005, 8). In areas such as Wangaya Betan, where traditional rice varieties are still grown, the need for artificial fertilizers is less in the first place. Of the group of thirty individuals Arthawiguna surveyed in 2006, the average use of urea was 177.79 kg/ha, of KCl was 8.11 kg/ha, and of Sp36, 1.25 kg/ha, all well below government recommendations. In addition several farmers were already using significant amounts of organic fertilizer.

³³Such schemes are based on traditional methods of livestock resource sharing, known in at least some parts of Bali as ngadai karang, in which the person caring for a cow has first right to its offspring.

³⁴Arthawiguna 2006, 2. My knowledge of this project has come mostly though annual (mid-year) visits of a few weeks, hence the “one-year-on” format of this account.

³⁵One exception is obviously Pak Sunari's project near Payangan. The only other one of which I am aware is just one valley away inWangaya Gede, where a local (Gede Hanjaya) married to an expatriate has converted his own fields to organic production, largely to supply an international yoga center located on his property. See MacRae 2005 (Growing).

³⁶Arthawiguna 2006, 6.

³⁷Hendra is a pseudonym, as are the names of most other members of PTDB, but PTDB (and its offshoot companies) are not, because they are publicly listed company whose activities have also been reported in the public media.

³⁸Jro Gede Karang's presence, and the content of his speech, was an undoubted boost to the prestige of the project, but may also be read as an early step toward establishing his political legitimacy among farmers. This introduces yet another layer of motivation and interests into the project, but this is another story.

³⁹Issues of tenure are, as Nitish Jha has reminded me, always important in Balinese agriculture, and are one of several missing links in this story. This calls for more detailed ethnographic research.

⁴⁰Bali cattle are a small subspecies distinctive to Bali. They were traditionally used for ploughing and fertilizing rice fields, but since the Green Revolution, they have (for a number of reasons) progressively disappeared from the agricultural landscape and by the early twenty-first century, appeared destined to die out.

⁴¹Export of rice is illegal in Indonesia, reflecting the priority of national self-sufficiency, but there is now provision for exceptions in the case of special premium products.

⁴²Approximately US$750,000.

⁴³Ciherang, which was developed from the previously standard IR64 and released onto the market in 2000, is widely preferred because of its superior taste. It has since become the new standard variety in much of Bali.

⁴⁴My knowledge of these events comes largely from conversations with my friends Alit and Hendra. I amgrateful to them both for their open and honest sharing of information as well as their own perceptions and feelings. I record also my respect for the (typically Indonesian) dignity and resigned good humor with which they accepted unhappy outcomes and declined to lay blame for the problems.

⁴⁵Dove and Kammen 1997, 96.

⁴⁶Some of the conclusions that can be drawn from this story have been discussed elsewhere; others will be described and analyzed in future publications. One, Arthawiguna and MacRae, 2010, concerns the role of the subak in this process. The other, MacRae forthcoming, concerns the factors that enable successful development projects.

⁴⁷Such studies were relatively common until the 1980s (for a recent review, see White 2000), but since then they have been all but abandoned. Among the rare exceptions are Ellis 1993 and Bourgeois and Gouyon 2001, but even these are based on research a decade or more ago in parts of the country where economic conditions were, even then, rather different from Bali. The work of Stefan and Rachel Lorenzen (2008) is one exception that is both recent and related to Bali.

⁴⁸“RI–China Kerjasama Benih Padi Hibrida,” Antara News, 6 December 2007; Sumarno 2006; Virmani et al., n.d.; Simatupang and Timmer 2008, 67. It is perhaps significant that the countries most involved in hybrid varieties are also the largest exporters of rice.

⁴⁹See Mathews and Wassman 2003.

⁵⁰A similar point has also been made recently by Hart and Peluso 2005, 182.