Balinese Rice

[Thorsten]

Hi Susie,

welcome to the forum and many, many, many thanks for providing this link !

I must admit, that even I was more than surprised to read about the enormous economical improvement given by this example, much more than I had expected!
Don’t forget, this only a very small, isolated project in middle of still chemical polluted agriculture to put the impressing numbers, this farmer delivers in the right context!

I Made Chakra, a young Balinese who has been working for the past two years to return his family’s rice fields to chemical-free production … Two years after chemical use was stopped and the SRI was initiated, harvests doubled.

…If he’d sold it for half that, his profit would still be almost twice that of his neighbour who uses chemicals, plus he makes almost Rp 1.5 juta on the ducks. However you crunch the numbers, he is ahead.)

Harvest +100%, profit +400% in two years, that I would like to call a revolution!
So what has he done to achieve this? The answer is nothing!!!
In fact this farmer simply turned back time for 30 years and did the same what his uneducated ancestors have always done.

To put this numbers in relation, think about that this traditional technique of agriculture has seen not any kind of evolution in the past 30 years, that he is still producing in a contaminated environment, that the bio system surrounding his field is still not intact, that the soil in his fields is still in a process of regeneration after only two years!!!

You can also say that the Green Revolution robbed ¾ of the income from Balinese rice farmers over the last 30years, that’s why they still don’t have inside toilets!

But the most important sentence in this article is:

As understanding spreads that entrepreneurial farmers can make more money, hopefully their children will be encouraged to stay on the land. And raising awareness of Bali’s unique heritage rice varieties is a step in that direction.

[Markit]

Sorry, and I really don't want to rain on your "feel good" party but the example of the young farmer selling his rice for 3+ million is wonderful but not to be compared with the entire rice market. And here's why: he is selling a specialty heritage red rice i.e. selling to the high-end specialty market, not your plain white rice user.

If all the Balinese rice farmers where to follow his glowing example then, basically, they would all starve, sorry but that's the way economics works. Unless the high end, specialty market was to blossom and encompass the whole world rice market it is of very limited application to the rest of Bali or Indonesia. Sorry.

[tintin]

Like I said before, you'll find all you want to know about SRI, I Made Cakra Widia's Sustainable Agriculture Training of Trainers Project and the Rotary Club of Bali Ubud involvement, at

http://www.rotaryubud.org/projects/susA ... ct_Sponsor

The Rotary Club of Bali Ubud has been requested to facilitate funding administration of the Sustainable Agriculture Training of Trainers Project, which is being conducted by Chakra Widia in Bali. Funding for one year has been approved by The Funding Network (TFN); funds will be transferred to a RCBU project account and passed to Chakra as required.

Ongoing RCBU project involvement, over and above the transfer of funds from TFN, occurs only due to the good grace of Chakra Widia and may be terminated by him at any time. The RCBU objective to observe and assess the program is outside the scope of the agreement between Chakra Widia and TFN.

PS. There's even a picture of Made on the page. :)

[ronb]

Wow! what a lot of valuable information.

However, I see very little recognition of population growth as a major factor causing the changes over the last 50 years. Bali population is now about 3.2 million and now not growing much. In 1950 I believe it would have been 1.6 million at most, and in 1900 I would guess at 1.2 million. Does anyone have information sources that would help here?

The Ubud Rotary page that Tintin points us to says "Rice quality and yield declined as populations grew" - but does not attempt to quantify. I would speculate that rice yields per hectare have not dropped (on average across Bali) and that all the "damage" has come from population growth.

Clearly, while the traditional methods developed over centuries were able to meet the needs of a smaller population, they cannot feed 3.2 million without some changes.

The "Romancing the Rice" page reminds me of the "Real Ale" movement in UK in particular, and the trend to organic farming in general. Connoisseurs are interested enough to seek the "real thing" and are willing to pay premiums, and I would wish the producers catering to these markets every success.

[tintin]

ronb,

Here are official census figures regarding Bali population

1920 - 947,233
1930 - 1,101,037
1971 - 2,120, 322
1980 - 2,469,930
1990 - 2,777,811
1995 - 2,895,649
2000 - 3,151,162

You educated guess of about 1.6 million is pretty good and most likely correct.

The estimate for 2007 is about 3,200,000 - 3,400,000

[tintin]

Correction.

You educated guess of about 1.6 million is pretty good and most likely correct.

I meant for 1950. Sorry.

[Thorsten]

This all has nothing at all to do with romancing anything or nostalgia , it has also nothing to do with ideology of organic, biological, greener agriculture, maybe indeed (under consideration of export) it could provide an option to a higher price market, but even this is irrelevant on first hand.

Maybe some of you got a wrong impression about my motives in this thread, let me assure you I’m not a greeny, I’m also not dreaming about a Bali 30 years ago, neither I would like to turn back time, much more I see this from an economical aspect!
I don’t want to talk about world population, politics, globalisation or any other, rather abstract matters here in this thread, the topic is Balinese rice and not even in the context, I would like to float into a discussion about industry lobbyism, political failure, whatever, better let’s stay focused on the single, Balinese rice farmer and his personal situation after this so-called Green Revolution.

While estimated 30% of the Balinese population are more or less involved in the tourist industry, 70% of them are not, so to say the majority of the population does not benefit at all from tourism.
Traditionally, agriculture and especially rice farming was and is the main source of income for these people, Bali is an island, but today it’s not the question anymore if Balinese farmers are able to feed the population or not, globalisation also didn’t stop at the shores of Bali, it’s much more the question, is agriculture rentable or not for them.

The price for rice is definite by the market, whoever has seen rice farming in Thailand and will compare it with rice farming in Bali, cultivating rice mostly in steep terraces with paddies, sometimes not even bigger than 100 sqm will understand that the Balinese farmer has no chance at all to compete with it, another factor is the cost of employees and the cost for living in Bali, due to tourism the prices are in general higher than in other parts of Indonesia.

Transport costs in international trade are low, the Balinese farmer is producing an average product, so he will also get an average price for this product, productivity is low due the difficult conditions which make the use of modern technical equipment impossible, human labour is high.
Before the Green Revolution the production costs where almost only definite due the human labour, the farmer was producing the seeds by himself, he had not to buy chemical fertilizers, almost no pesticides – nothing.
With the so-called “Green Revolution” some more other factors were coming together, at the same time the island developed tourism, in the consequence also the local prices for everything else increased, actually the income for the farmer should increase too, to keep the same level of life-standard, at the same time something started which we call now globalisation, so the rice farmers lost the influence on price building, while the costs for production increased now dramatically, in the first years a better yield per hectare due the influence of the modern seeds and intensive use of chemical fertilizers could compensate this a little.
The chemical industry took over the counselling of the farmers, providing more products, newer products, better products, the prices for this products are dictated by them, so the production costs increased and increased, at the other hand the yield per hectare dropped now, the main source for production – the soil died, the ecosystem collapsed and more and more pests were the cause, which are fought now with expensive pesticides, delivered by the same industry.

So the price for the product rice was fixed, the expenses for production increased, the life in general got also more and more expensive.
The tourism industry is advertising Bali all around the world with spectacular images of the rice terraces, a tourist attraction without any doubt and while an unskilled labourer, the people who are preserving and cultivating these terraces gets today 17,500 Rps for a day of hard work, for the Balinese farmer this is even too much, so he gets seasonal workers from Java now, which are doing the job even cheaper in his desperate to reduce some costs.
Rice farming is not providing a solid source of income anymore, more and more Balinese workers are unemployed, the younger people are looking for other jobs.

It’s almost a joke, that the Indonesian government has launched a program now, to get back to sustainable agriculture, it is also a joke, that the SRI program is presented as an innovation, while it is in fact just a return to the time before this Green Revolution, though their statistics about the improvement in different nations of the world are impressing.

In only two generations the knowledge of thousand years was lost, now a training program is teaching Balinese farmers to do the same, they have always done!
When this Balinese farmer Made Cakra is able to double the yield (of course per hectare, per what else, do you think he would even bother to think about the population?) and to increase his profit for 400%, since he simply let the nature do the job, then is this a fundamental change of the economical situation for these farmers!

In agriculture you rely on living elements, it does not work like industrial production, it has nothing to do with eco or not, it is simply fact and these facts have been explored already long time ago.
Balinese rice farmers cannot compete with the world market, but they can try to find a niche for a special product, what will happen with Bali, when all these farmers would give up agriculture, simply due economical pressure, how will the face of Bali change, how will the whole culture change?

Best regards
Thorsten