Subak in Denpasar Remains at 1,915 Hectares, Densel and Denut Begin to Face Threats
The area of active subak land in Denpasar City, Bali, now remains at around 1,915 hectares from a total of 42 subaks spread across four districts. This land covers rice fields and productive horticultural plantations.
“It includes rice fields and horticultural crops, not just rice fields. What we record as active is certainly still plantable, for which we provide assistance; the assistance varies, such as seeds and so on,” stated the Head of the Denpasar City Agriculture Service (Distan), AA Gde Bayu Brahmasta, when confirmed by the detikBali team on Wednesday (13/5/2026).
The Denpasar City Distan revealed that the subak areas beginning to reach critical levels are in South Denpasar and North Denpasar. These threatened regions are due to residential development.
Currently, there are 8 subaks in West Denpasar, 10 in South Denpasar, 10 in North Denpasar, and 14 in East Denpasar. Brahmasta emphasised that supervision of subak sustainability is carried out by the respective villages/sub-districts together with the Denpasar City Public Works and People’s Housing Service (PUPR).
“In addition, collaboration with customary villages, utilising subak areas as agrotourism. Moreover, the customary villages already have perarem (customary rules) that are binding regarding subak,” explained Brahmasta.
In addition to preserving agricultural areas, Distan, together with the Denpasar City Education and Culture Office, is also striving to maintain the Tri Hita Karana philosophy in the subak system, from the environmental aspect (palemahan), spiritual (parhyangan), to the social aspect of farmers (pawongan).
Amid the subak crisis in Denpasar, the optimisation of food security is also being carried out by the Denpasar City Distan through efforts to increase agricultural production yields. One of them is by implementing Demonstration Plots (demplots) of new superior rice varieties that have high productivity and are more resistant to pests and diseases.
Brahmasta also mentioned that current regulations support the protection of subak. Among them are Presidential Regulation Number 4 of 2026 on Controlling the Conversion of Rice Field Land, Regional Regulation Number 4 of 2026 on Controlling the Conversion of Productive Land and Prohibition of Nominal Land Ownership Transfer, as well as Regional Regulation Number 8 of 2021 on the Denpasar City Spatial Planning Plan for 2021-2041.