Contained in the small, open-air stone temple within the centre of the Lotudunduh rice fields, a farmer wraps a sarong and sash round his mud-spattered work garments.
Suitably wearing baju adat, or conventional gown, to method the gods, he locations a small providing of brightly colored flowers in a platter of woven palm leaves on one of many tall carved shrines and sprinkles it with holy water. The temple, the ceremony, the farmer and the rice fields are all a part of Bali’s historic, ritually managed rice farming system known as subak.
Subak, says I Made Chakra Widia, is a really intelligent system. Chakra is the fourth technology of a rice-farming household in Pengosekan, close to the village of Ubud. “[The original farmers] actually understood easy methods to farm this land,” he says. “They understood the interplay between soil, water and climate.” Nature was seen as a companion within the rising of meals, not a useful resource to be exploited, he tells Mongabay.
This hyperlinks with Tri Hita Karana, the central philosophy of Bali’s distinctive type of Hinduism, which maintains that the spirit realm, the human world and nature have to be in stability for human prosperity, well being and well-being.
“We consider that nature has energy — that all the things has a spirit,” says Eka Yuliani, the spouse of (former) rice farmers. “Our faith in Bali, it’s not about praying, it’s about giving thanks. After we put choices in entrance of a tree, we’re giving thanks for the oxygen, the flowers, the fruit.”
Bali’s unique animist faith, often known as Agama Tirtha (Faith of Water), positioned water because the central tenet of Balinese life. The Hindu Majapahit conquest within the 14th century overlaid Hindu beliefs, and whereas Bali’s faith is now often known as Hindu Dharma, many Balinese nonetheless name it Agama Tirtha.
Water is utilized in each Balinese ritual, small or elaborate, from each day choices to cleaning and purifying ceremonies to main festivals.
“The great thing about Agama Tirtha is that it’s social, cultural and faith collectively,” Eka says. “Water has power — highly effective power. It’s purifying, all the things in life is about water. Water retains us alive, grows meals so we are able to eat. Water is holy.”
So when dealing with rising inhabitants strain within the ninth century, Balinese farmers who wanted to develop rice manufacturing turned to a water system. They developed irrigated stepped rice terraces to take care of the mountainous terrain and unfold this expertise throughout Bali.
The rice terraces, in accordance with Stephen Lansing, had been as a lot a social creation as an agricultural one. Lansing is an ecological anthropologist with the Santa Fe Institute within the US, who has researched Balinese social techniques for 5 many years.
Farmers organised themselves into native village models, known as subak (which ultimately grew to become the title for the whole system), to construct and assist an elaborate irrigation system. They carved tunnels by hand to deliver water down from the volcanic lake within the crater of Mount Batur.
To today, the water continues to move by means of an elaborate system of canals, channels, weirs and drainage ditches, irrigating rice terraces on its journey right down to the ocean.
The rice fields, Lansing says, are “an artificially constructed ecosystem, sustained by steady human administration.” This ecosystem is characterised by nutrient and biochemical cycles, or “pulses,” outlined by moist and dry phases. The managed cycles change soil pH, flow into minerals, stabilise the soil temperature, kill weeds, encourage the expansion of nitrogen-fixing algae, and cease nutrient loss into the subsoil.
The wealthy silt flowing down from the volcanic slopes brings obligatory minerals, and draft animals contribute manure. Historically, farmers rotated their planting between rice, which has a seven-month rising cycle, and different crops. Whereas fashionable rice farming depends closely on chemical fertilisers and herbicides, the unique system functioned with out these artificial inputs.
As soon as, says Chakra, the rice fields had been “like paradise.” He grew up in them they usually taught him about nature and the cycle of life. “I actually admire the subak system as a result of I used to be a part of it. After I grew up on this village, there have been simply rice fields, no roads, no connection to the surface world. Every little thing was natural, with wealthy range,” he says.
A rice subject, stuffed with bugs, birds, eels and fish, and its verges, with bushes, bushes and meals crops, was an open-air grocery store, offering protein, greens, fruit, wild greens and rice. Every little thing, from algae to people, contributed and took one thing from the ecosystem.
“I feel that’s what heaven is,” Chakra says of this unique ecology. “I assumed it was the perfect job on this planet to exit within the rice subject at night time to catch eels, with simply an oil lamp, listening to all of the sounds of nature, the frogs, and seeing all of the fireflies.”
Clergymen use ritual expertise
As subak techniques grew to become established throughout the island of Bali within the 11th century, conflicts over water elevated.
To make sure water was shared equitably, the Balinese arrange a system of water temples, or pura tirtha, close to lakes, rivers and is derived. The mom temple sits on Lake Batur, the first water supply, devoted to the lake’s deity, Dewi Danu.
Taking part villages should preserve the water temples and subak system and supply choices for ceremonies. “Agriculture got here first, a couple of thousand years in the past,” Chakra says. “Then faith got here. [Agriculture] was woven into the faith … so it will not be forgotten, it will be preserved.”
Water temple monks took over managing the subak system utilizing what Lansing calls “ritual expertise.” The monks devised calendars to trace rising cycles, organise job teams and synchronise rituals and actions with the rising season and the Balinese lunar calendar.
They set planting and harvesting dates in session with every subak, alternating fields between flooding and fallow cycles to handle rice pests and water stress. Water sharing includes a posh schedule of opening and shutting dams to distribute water and guarantee there’s a balanced patchwork of moist and dry fields so pests can’t unfold.
On an island dominated by a caste system, subak is a really democratic system, in accordance with Lansing. There are about 1,200 subak teams in Bali, every with 40-500 farmers. Every farmer, no matter their social standing, has an equal voice. Anybody attempting to drag rank in a bunch is fined. In excessive instances, the place a village or particular person routinely violates subak guidelines, monks can ban them from collaborating in non secular ceremonies. This has by no means been finished: the risk is sufficient.
The water temple monks are mentioned to behave as intermediaries between the religious realm and farming communities. They conduct ceremonies that give thanks and search steering and blessings from the gods for a bountiful rice harvest.
Water and rice in Bali are related to the female: Dewi Danu, the goddess of the crater lake, whose waters feed the whole subak system, and Dewi Sri, the goddess of rice and fertility. The Balinese say they consider if the goddesses are angered or uncared for, water gained’t circulate, and rice gained’t develop.
When Lansing created a pc mannequin of the subak system with ecologist Jim Kremer from the College of Connecticut, he discovered that water temple administration supplied the optimum stability between low pest ranges and ample water.
The effectivity of this “ritual expertise” was revealed when it was briefly misplaced. Throughout the so-called Inexperienced Revolution of the Seventies and ’80s, the Indonesian authorities pressured farmers to modify to a brand new breed of fast-growing, hybridised rice, which wanted chemical fertilisers and pesticides.
Native authorities took over water administration, encouraging farmers to develop as a lot as they may, ignoring conventional planting and harvesting schedules. Plagues of rice pests, fights between subak teams, and water shortages adopted. In 1988, the nationwide authorities returned management of the subak to the water temples.
Nevertheless, nearly all rice farmers in Bali proceed to make use of agrochemical inputs and the hybridised white rice, in accordance with Chakra.
The way forward for the subak
Chakra grows Taunan Jatiluwih heritage pink rice organically on his household’s land and trains different farmers to do the identical; natural rice can fetch thrice as a lot as white rice. “Farmers love farming,” he says. “They wish to farm. However they should be paid extra.”
At this time in Bali, farmers have low social standing; the each day fee of a rice farmer who makes use of agrochemicals is the equal of US$1.50, in accordance with Chakra, which, over the course of a month, is just a couple of quarter of the month-to-month minimal wage in Bali. Younger folks favor to work in tourism, so most farmers aren’t being changed as they age. Chakra says most subak members are older than 50. Farmers should additionally pay land tax, a system began throughout Dutch colonial rule. They’ll typically earn more money by promoting their rice fields.
At this time, Chakra’s village is engulfed by Ubud’s sprawl, surrounded by villas and inns, with few rice fields left. He says he plans to maneuver north, away from vacationer areas, the place subak techniques are largely nonetheless intact.
Eka’s household fields within the neighbouring village of Nyuh Kuning can not develop something; the close by inns, constructed on former rice fields, have blocked the traditional water channels to their land. Now, she says, her household has no selection however to hire out the land to foreigners to construct a home. “We’ll get the land again in 15 years [when the rent contract ends],” Eka says. “However we are able to by no means use that land for meals once more.”
She says she worries that the subsequent technology of Balinese is turning into disconnected from nature, and that subak rites could grow to be empty phrases for them. However Lansing disagrees, saying the monks and water temples are nonetheless as influential as ever in Balinese society.
“Earlier than, the sawah [rice field] was a great way to show youngsters concerning the ecosystem, about birds, water, nature and Tri Hita Karana,” Eka says. Now, in class, her younger son learns solely that subak is an historic irrigation system. Eka takes him to a neighbouring village with an intact system to indicate the way it works. “I attempt to clarify to him that subak is de facto one thing particular, however will probably be modified if you don’t hold it,” she says.
Presently, Bali loses about 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of agricultural land per yr to growth, largely for tourism. Tourism additionally makes use of 65 per cent of Bali’s water, competing with farmers as local weather change dries up Bali’s rivers and streams. UNESCO World Heritage standing protects 19,500 hectares (48,200 acres) of the subak system however that is solely a part of a complete 154,000 hectares (380,500 acres) underneath rice cultivation in Bali. The watershed forests on Batur are recognised as being a part of subak by being a supply of mineral-rich water, in accordance with Lansing.
Lansing and I Wayan Alit Artha Wiguna, head of agricultural extension coaching in Bali for the Indonesia Ministry of Agriculture, are testing a methane emissions discount challenge utilizing low-water, low-fertiliser farming within the subak of Bena village. Globally, 11 per cent of methane emissions come from flooded rice fields.
The trials present 85 per cent emissions discount and 20 per cent greater rice yields within the Bena subak, The farmers say they’re proud of the elevated yields and decrease enter prices, which will increase their income. Close by farmers say they’re .
Lansing and Alit wish to incorporate carbon credit into the scheme to extend farmer incomes. If they will persuade all 80 Bena farmers to make use of the brand new technique, the unity of the traditional system could persuade all subak in Bali to vary, they are saying.
This story was printed with permission from Mongabay.com.
