A pact to save ‘subak’
As hectare after hectare of productive farmland is lost to housing and
hotels each year in Bali, one community is bucking the trend, making a
promise to conserve their traditionally irrigated subak rice farms.
Residents
of the villages of Bunutan and Tanggayuda, just north of Ubud, are
undertaking a pilot project with the Bali Rice Field Conservation
Foundation (Yayasan Konservasi Sawah Bali) to dedicate more than 117
productive acres exclusively to rice for the long term.
The
owners of the 135 farms in the program will receive regular subsidies
from Sawah Bali for signing agreements not to turn their land into
building plots, ensuring that the centuries-long practice of subak
farming will continue — despite development.
According to Sawah
Bali founder Phyllis Kaplan, all the members of Subak Malung, which
comprises the two villages, have signed up. The subak was chosen for the
pilot due to its proximity to Ubud.
“As these villages are so
close to Ubud there is an extreme threat of them being sold off [for
non-agricultural development]. They are also very traditional villages
that have already gone partially organic,” says Kaplan
“The land-use tool that Sawah Bali will introduce is one utilized
successfully for over 40 years in the US to conserve farms. Sawah Bali
will replicate the Vermont Land Trust concept to keep the working
landscape productive with best-use practices for managing threatened
natural resources with competing purposes,” Kaplan said in a press
release. “By conserving the farmland and subak, water use will be
prioritized for subak, sawah, food production, security and [sacred
activities].”
Sawah Bali is currently well funded and has technical partners in land conservation, fund-raising and soil rehabilitation.
Kaplan
adds that technical assistance will be given to promote 100 percent
organic farming and to plant heritage rice and other value-added crops
to increase farm viability.
“Whenever in the future farmers have
problems, we have technical assistance for them so they can consult with
the appropriate person to address issues, either collectively or as
individual farmers,” says Kaplan of the project that she hopes will
become a model for the 1,500 or so subak across Bali.
Kaplan says
that while many across Bali want to continue farming, market pressures
lead them to give up their traditional livelihoods.
Stressors
include hefty land tax increases in areas near tourist destinations such
as Ubud, diminishing income for farmers, the threat to water access
when rice fields are interspersed with buildings and youth who are
leaving the field to find work elsewhere.
It is not too late to halt the destruction of the Balinese agricultural
way of life, according to Wayan Rachman, a resident of the village and a
“conductor of land conservation” for Sawah Bali.
Wayan says the
island is at a tipping point for land conversions, a problem exacerbated
by declining incomes and land tax increases due to escalating property
values.
“Bali is facing great pressure from tourism. One area of
this is the need of investors to build more villas. As a result,
farmland, wherever suitable for hotels, villas or restaurants, becomes a
target [for conversion]. This not only affects rice fields, but the
heritage we have been passing down for centuries,” says Wayan.
While
farmland loss is an environmental issue, agriculture is at the center
of Balinese religion, culture and heritage, as expressed in the concept
of Tri Hita Karana — people, the lands and the gods — and the balance
this implies.
Wayan continues. “These transformations of rice
farms have brought about an imbalance to this spiritual concept — a
concept that suits the Balinese really well. Also, from an economic
point of view, there is an interdependence between the land and the
people: The land gives food, so we have an obligation to take care of
that land by working our rice field.”
The head of Subak Malung, Nyoman Wardika, says the key to a healthy agricultural sector is the harvest.
We need to increase farming practices and gain technical skills on
farming. We need to find ways that we can increase our yields. This is
critical, because over time our yields have been declining, while
farming costs are very high,” Wardika says. “We believe this project
will help us increase our yields through education and technical skills.
Every farmer in our subak organization is 100 percent behind this
project.”
One farmer, Ketut Pendak, says he is deeply grateful
that the village is getting help to preserve its traditional farming
lifestyles.
“I am very happy to be a member of this project. Our
agricultural culture is not only about income, but is also related to
our religious ceremonies. Every Balinese ceremony has rice as offerings,
so it is vital we do not lose this land of rice production,” says
Pendak, looking out over a green swathe of maturing rice.
Another
farmer, Made Anggit, 62, is looking forward to keeping the traditions
of the village alive. “I have kids and grandkids and I want to keep the
land for them — to go down generation to generation, just like it was
for me.
“This land has been in our family from the mid-18th
century, so this is my children’s heritage. Selling our land would be
like selling your mother.”
Taken from Jakarta Post
Nusa Dua Bali Golf and Country Club, voted 'One of Asia's 5 Best Golf Courses'(Fortune Magazine - USA)
will offer visitors to Bali a truly unique golfing experience due to
the fantastic setting of the course. Golfers will experience three
distinct playing environments throughout the 18-hole course.
The setting of holes 1 through 9 features creeks, canyons, and native
vegetation filled with tropical birds.The golf course architect team of
Robin Nelson and Rodney Wright incorporated small hand-built stone
walls to terrace the sides of fairways and tees in order to emulate the
rice fields terraces of the Bali countryside. 
