The island of Bali in Indonesia has an international reputation as a fabulous holiday destination. The over one million tourists who visit each year are drawn by the colourful local culture as well as the beautiful environment there. The tropical island’s capacity for lush growth is a result of dramatic terrain, for it is dominated by a central mass of towering peaks, all volcanoes. Some are quiet and dormant, others still steamy and covered with black lava flows from activity of the recent past. Lying where the Sunda and Australian tectonic plates collide, this formative volcanic activity has brought both life and death to the population (currently at around 3 million). Recent lava flows have wiped out whole villages. They are now mined for road base and building materials, and will eventually break down into the lush soils that have provided the Balinese with such an abundance of food that they have had the spare time to develop an unique and complex culture, derived from a mix of Indian Hinduism and Buddhism grafted onto indigenous animist traditions.
Tourists are also lured by the plethora of traditional textiles, art and handicrafts, colourful dances and the tasty food on offer. Nowhere is the culture so accessible as it is in the inland ‘village’ of Ubud. When I first visited Ubud in 1974 it really was a village, nestled amidst lush green paddy fields, where rice cropping brought in two to three crops per year. And visiting again in 1983 I enjoyed the gentle pace of life there. I returned in April 2008, not expecting to recognise the place. Millions of tourists have passed through here and Ubud is now a district encompassing several villages where the handicraft shops lining the streets go on for miles and the pace of life is much faster. Increased prosperity for the locals means that shiny new big cars, rather oversized for the small roads, are also everywhere. Yet the people still have warm smiles and are graciously welcoming, and behind the street shops and restaurants the paddy fields are still out there.
There was a noticeable lack of visitors during my visit. It was the low season, but I was told that since the terrible Asian tsunami of 2004, tourist numbers have dropped and the pace of development has slowed. This is terrible for the economy, but a boon for the environment. The amount of arable land is not great, considering the amount of island that is steep and rainforested. The fertile coastal strip has suffered from rampant tourist development, while Indonesian people from other islands in the vast archipelago have also flocked here to service the boom, swelling the population. As a result the amount of land where rice can be grown has vastly shrunk and people have turned to the so-called ‘green revolution’ rice varieties that give up to three to four crops per year. But there’s a high price being paid. Crop rotation methods, which naturally controlled pests, have given way to chemical dependence. The spiritual-cultural traditions involved with growing the much taller, slower growing Bali padi have also declined, although some people grow a little plot of it to appease Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice growing.
Around the island rice crops at different stages of growth can be seen in terraces of brilliant green that cover the lowlands and cascade down hill slopes. Men typically plant out seedlings in the wet paddies, while elsewhere groups of women are harvesting the rice together in other fields, in a break from their usual chores. Tiny colourful shrines to the rice goddess are found in most fields and are a way of distinguishing ownership of them. Flags and kinetic devices clack-clacking in the wind are used to scare away birds from the ripening grain. Men with backpack sprayers can be seen spraying chemicals.
Following the harvest the stubble is burnt, after which squadrons of ducks are sent in to clean up any spilt rice or weeds, as well as provide manure for natural fertilisation. Then roto-tillers or, less commonly, cows with ploughs are brought in to stir up the mud for the next round of planting. There was a noticeable lack of insects and birds to be seen in the agricultural areas – perhaps the legacy of several decades of chemical usage.
Other local staple foods grown in Bali include bananas, coconuts, peanuts, soya beans, palm sugar, chillies, cassava and taro. Delicious slow growing black rice is also grown, but is less common these days.
Organic movement
Ubud has a deserved reputation as the culinary capital of Bali, with talented chefs designing delicious fusion cuisine, combining Balinese, Asian, Indian and European dishes with appealing low prices. Knowing that growing food in the tropics usually means battling hordes of insect pests, I was pleasantly surprised to find a fledgling organic food movement in Bali that’s centred in Ubud. There are only perhaps five dedicated organic farms on the island I was told, as I took the opportunity to book into a tour of one of them. This farm is the brainchild of one ‘Mr Nomad’, Nyoman Samar, a maverick Balinese who has been an international traveller, restauranteur and entrepreneur of several other Ubud businesses. Fantastic dishes are served at Nomads restaurant, which Samar established in 1979, all free from MSG or other artificial additives and most of the vegetables used there are organically produced. To be able to see the vegetables in production was an added bonus.
A comfortable, air conditioned car took us climbing steeply towards our destination, some 40 km from Ubud in the mountains to the north west. Ubud sits at around 300m elevation, while the farm, situated at around 1000m would no doubt be often in the clouds, enjoying rainfall of several metres per year. Narrow winding roads provided us with endless vistas of terraced mountain sides and jungley orchard gardens. Coconut palms of the lowlands had given way to other vegetation reflecting the cooler climate, such as flower farms of hydrangeas and marigolds, and the odd azaleas in bloom. And this is a region where vegetable crops more familiar to Western tastes are grown.
Here proliferate fields of carrots, corn, beans, lettuces, cabbages, pumpkins, peppers, strawberries and tomatoes, all enjoying the plentiful water that is reticulated from the several vast volcanic crater lakes situated higher up. Bali lies close to the Equator, so the mild climate here provides a welcome relief from the humid lowlands. There are only two seasons – the Wet Season runs from November to April, when heavy showers dump down regularly, followed by the Dry, or we could call it the drier season, when sunshine is more prevalent. The high rainfall of the wet season would normally dissolve the European vegetables into slush, but this hazard is reduced by covering the cropping rows with strips of plastic sheeting attached to bamboo framework.
After an hour or so of constant uphill climbing we arrived at the organic farm. It was back in 2004 when Mr Nomad teemed up with Mr Agus and his family to create this farm and they are still experimenting with growing techniques, our guide told us. Cropping rows boasted herb crops of dill, sweet basil, mint, thyme, marjoram, coriander, parsley, sage, oregano and chives; as well as favourite Balinese spices – ginger, white ginger, tumeric and galangal. (As an aside – I was interested to hear from an Australian restauranteur in Bali that the consumption of tumeric as a common food spice was associated with populations that are free from Alzheimers disease.) The farm also grows carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, Chinese brassicas and other vegetables.
The red-brown volcanic soil here is rich and free draining. Natural fertiliser is derived from urine from the up to 100 Balinese cows that are kept in separate stalls in an open-sided barn. In this tropical feedlot concrete drains collect the cow’s urine and manure is removed manually. The urine is hand watered in diluted form around the crop plants. Weeds are hand chipped and mulch is spread on top of the beds to also suppress weeds. Beds are raised to enhance drainage. Ploughing the soil is done traditionally, with either hand hoe or with cows. It’s a labour intensive operation and the whole Agus family is involved with farm management. They not only supply Nomads, but also another Ubud restaurant – Sari’s Organiks.
(I also discovered that Ubud boasts an organic farm produce market every Saturday morning, outside the Pizza Bagus shop on Jalan Pengosekan.)
Simple Bio-gas production
Particularly fascinating was the farm’s production of bio-gas from cow manure, which is used to run a generator to supply electricity needs. A Japanese expert initially provided advice on its set-up (however the system was not operational when we visited as the cows had just been sold). The small, gentle Balinese cows are bought in young and grown on for a year or so in the barn. Greenery is cut and fed to them, mostly in the form of Elephant grass (which in Australia is also called Bana grass) – a very tall growing species, up to some 3 metres high. Their manure is hand collected then dried for three weeks. It is then rehydrated and EM (Effective Micro-organisms) is added to the slurry in a pit. A thick plastic bag, weighed down by rocks, collects the bio-gas released from the slurry. It is then piped into various holding tanks and, when needed, fed into the special generator to be transformed into electricity, or burnt as cooking fuel. The spent manure still has value as fertiliser for adding to soil afterwards. I was surprised and impressed by the simplicity of the system. Only five bags of manure added to the pit every two days is enough to keep the system powering.
The farm had been opened to visitors for a year when we saw it. We were also shown a larger scale composting operation at the Bali Botanic Gardens in nearby Bedugul. Here green waste is stacked in large mounds, having been mixed 3 to 1 with cow manure, and covered with black plastic sheeting. The heaps can achieve temperatures of around 60C and hand turning them every week is a hot business, although the mild climate at around1200m altitude would make it more bearable. When finished, after putting it through a sifter, the black compost is bagged up and used in the nursery or sold to the public for around US80c per bag.
Balinese orchardry
The variety of fruit in Bali is mouth watering and the freshly blended fruit juices available here are particularly memorable. Apart from local varieties of oranges, mandarins, lemons, watermelons and pineapples (none of which are particularly sweet), the more exotic fruits here include mangoes, papayas, rambutans, mangosteens, jak fruit, durian and salak. Avocadoes are often liquidised and combined with a squirt of chocolate syrup for a sensational sweet drink!
Fruit trees are seen growing everywhere and jungle-like vegetation, on closer examination, often turns out to be mixed orchards. Here is found permaculture in its original form! On another eco-tour taken from Ubud we visited a mixed plantation, an edible jungle, where larger fruit trees, such as the prickly palms of the snake-skin-like salak fruit, have been underplanted with shade tolerant smaller species, such as coffee (a very large form of the robusta species); with tumeric, ginger, chillies and other herbs as ground covers below. These are all intertwined with vines of vanilla and fat cacao beans, that are the source of delicious chocolate. We were shown the processes involved in coffee making by hand and got to taste delicious combinations of the resulting ‘kopi Bali’, including coffee with strong ginger and coffee with liquid ginseng added – all very taste sensational!
Orchards elsewhere on the island were also generally polycultural, often with sweet potato as ground cover (where the canopy is not so dense as to exclude light) and pigeon peas (Cajanus cajun), the nitrogen fixing leguminous shrub that is the source of peas for dahl in Indian cuisine, planted around the edge.
Farm animals in Bali
The native Balinese cows are common here, although not kept in large numbers. They usually live in an open shed and food is brought to them. Sometimes kept to plough the land (although petrol driven roto-tillers are more used these days), the farmers generally do not eat them, but sell them when someone in the family dies. Cremation ceremonies are very elaborate and expensive, costing up to around $US1500, where the minimum wage, if they achieve it, can be around only $US70 per month. So to the Balinese the keeping and breeding of a few cows is like having money in the bank.
The indigenous pigs of Bali are small, black and slow growing. Larger and faster growing white pigs from Australia are more commonly kept these days, catering for the tourist demand for babi guling – roast pork.
Chickens are ubiquitous in the countryside. Scrawny fowl derived from the indigenous Asian Jungle Fowl (Gallus gallus), they are probably the most popular source of meat here. And the cocks provide entertainment in the form of cock fighting. Held in special pavilions in each village, it has sacred significance, symbolising the battle of good and evil; while the spilling of sacrificial blood is believed to appease dangerous spirits. Woven round baskets, each containing a single cock, are a common sight in the countryside, whilst associated gambling is officially prohibited.
Balinese water goddess
To be successful, rice growing requires the efficient and timely use of large quantities of water. An intricate water sharing system provides irrigation water for the fertile rice paddies upon which the island of Bali depends.
The Balinese revere the island’s waters as a divine gift from their water goddess Dewi Danu, who oversees the complex management of an elaborate network of irrigation channels administered from temples controlled by priests. Bali has many famous water temples that are located beside its lakes, irrigation canals and reservoirs. The priests of these temples are the managers of the water and arbitrators of water disputes.
Pura Ulun Danu Bratan in Bedugul is the most important and well known of the water temples. It presides over a picturesque volcanic crater lake some 1.3 kilometres (nearly one mile) above sea level, where the air is much cooler and lush pine forests thrive. This temple, consecrated in 1663, is the seat of Dewi Danu and here She is attended by her 24 priests. The high priest, Her human representative, was chosen in childhood by the goddess to serve until his death.
The temple controls about half of Bali’s agricultural land with a highly productive system that involves an intricate complex of canals, weirs, tunnels and ditches connected to 74 square miles of paddy fields. Festivals regularly take place here and the temple is an important social hub.
The Balinese have relied on their ritual-based system of irrigation for at least one thousand years. The temples are strategically placed at each level or diversion of the irrigation path. Paddy fields are organized into co-ops called subaks. Subak leaders ascend to the temple where prayers, offerings and meetings take place to affect a good crop and ensure that subaks far away downstream will have enough water to sustain their paddies.
Contacts – Nomad Restaurant and organic farm tour – email: nomad_crew@telkom.net
About the author – Alanna Moore is an eco-journalist based in Australia and Ireland. She is the author of Backyard Poultry – Naturally, Stone Age Farming (both published by Acres USA) and other books published by Python Press. She maintains a website at www.geomantica.com
© Alanna Moore, 2008. This article was first published in Acres USA.