Bali's sustainable social and agricultural system
Bali's sustainable social and agricultural system
I Ketut Sumarta, Contributor, Denpasar
More than a thousand years before 178 countries gathered in Rio de Janeiro in l992 to formulate the most crucial agenda to save the earth, known as Agenda 21, the ancient and humble Balinese farmers were already using a sustainable agricultural system to maintain the equilibrium of the earth and its ecosystem.
Since the ninth century, Balinese peasants have been practicing a wise farming system called Subak, in which groups of rice farmers with adjacent fields worked together to organize planting, irrigation and rituals to maintain social cooperation.
The Balinese farmers knew exactly the characteristics of their soil. They decided on everything such as the dates for planting the seeds and harvesting the rice, distributing water, fertilizing the plants and performing specific religious rituals in relation to the utilization of their paddies.
Every person who owned a rice field adjacent to other fields had to become a member of a Subak organization to establish a cooperative effort to bring the water to their lands. In one Subak area, the farmers established a temple to jointly worship Devi Sri, the goddess of prosperity.
For hundreds of years, the practice of Subak brought happiness, tranquility and prosperity to the people of Bali, who were blessed with fertile land and abundant agricultural resources. They lived in harmony with their neighbors, nature and the intangible world of the deities, which protected their welfare.
A yellow carpet of beautiful terraced rice fields covered most of Bali. No one in Bali suffered from lack of food. And today, there are still about 1,200 Subak organizations across Bali, whose members are descendants of the Subak pioneers of centuries ago.
But Bali has undergone drastic changes. The current Subak organizations face serious threats from different agricultural systems and unwise development projects on the once productive rice fields.
"The story of the sustainable Subak farming system is reaching its end due to the exploitation of Bali as Indonesia's number one tourist destination," said Nyoman Sutawan, a professor of agriculture at the Udayana University in Denpasar.
Once productive and fertile rice fields have been transformed into luxury hotels, villas and real estate complexes, such as those in the opulent tourist areas of Ubud and Tabanan in southern Bali, which had been the main sources of rice on the island.
Nyoman Gelebet, an expert in urban planning, said poorly planned development projects had destroyed paddies and badly disturbed the irrigation system, cutting off the water supply to neighboring rice fields.
"The most important point is that these development projects destroyed already established farming, social and religious systems, which in turn affected the balance between humans and their environment," he said.
The rapid growth of the tourist industry and development projects, however, are not the main causes of the destruction of the Subak system. The top-down agricultural policy of the New Order regime under former president Soeharto contributed greatly to the destruction of the Subak system in Bali.
In the early l970s, the New Order government introduced, or more precisely forced, Balinese farmers to adopt modern farming systems with high-quality paddy seeds.
The government decided which types of seeds and insecticides were to be used by the farmers, which was contrary to the bottom- up Subak system.
The government's agricultural policy immediately changed the environmentally friendly farming and irrigation systems used by the Balinese farmers.
"The Subak is a very democratic and transparent organization in which each member has similar rights to voice his opinion concerning all matters of the farming and irrigation system," explained Sutawan.
All Subak members are required to meet periodically to jointly deal with their farming activities. The head of a Subak, called a pekaseh, is elected democratically for a period of four to five years. The Subak head is responsible for ensuring all members receive their rights.
"Within this traditional organization, the Balinese people actually learned tolerance and democracy. They also learned to preserve the environment, which is in line with the Balinese concept of the Tri Hita Karana cosmological balance," Sutawan said.
The modern and complicated agricultural and irrigation systems forcefully introduced by the government not only disturbed the Subak system, but also the harmonious life of the Balinese people with the environment.
Another important factor behind the loss of the Subak is economy. Many Balinese are no longer interested in becoming farmers or owning and working rice fields.
Many landowners and farmers have sold their property to make way for development projects.
"The yields of their rice fields are no longer adequate to support them. Many farmers have changed profession to become laborers or low-paid hotel workers," said sociologist Putu Suasta.
All of this "progress" has changed much of Bali from an agrarian to an industrial society.
"But they do not realize that they are actually destroying their own island," Putu said.
It was the traditional and ancient wisdom that maintained the sustainability of the island, he said.