This started as an article on organic farming, but actually, it’s really about Bali’s resilience. Resilience is a powerful word, a characteristic that we mostly apply to people, implying an ability to deal with change and continue to develop.
What makes a person resilient? Is it a trait you are born with or can it be taught? Certainly it is a survival trait and many personal development programs focus on how to become more resilient.
Chatting to a stranger in a café in Bali I discovered that scientists now apply that same terminology to the ecosystems that make the planet liveable. Thomas Bergendorff is researching for his Masters Thesis, looking at Bali’s resilience, and in particular the subak system and organic farming. Originally trained in computing science, Thomas became frustrated and because his peers had such a “solve computer problems make money” focus and were uninterested in what was happening on the planet.
Now Thomas works with the Stockholm Resilience Centre in the area of governance of national resources, which is, as he puts it, “the intersection between social, political and environmental.” “We’ve got to get away from thinking of Nature as a kind of separate ‘black box over there’, and wondering what we can ‘get out of it’, as if it is separate from people”, he said.
The Centre works with world respected US anthropologist Steve Lansing to gather evidence for Bali’s Subak system for World Heritage status. The practical goal of the Subak, one of the most effective forces on the island, is to ensure that Bali’s rice plantations have enough water and are not threatened. The Hindu principle behind it is harmony, nature, man, and the gods working together.
The Stockholm Resilience Centre, established only 18 months ago, conducts research on systems such as the Subak, and is developing innovative collaborations between researchers, governments and individuals, to steer development onto a sustainable path.
Yet conflicting policies and practices often diminish resilience. A recent application to build a house in one Balinese village was granted, despite the subak’s denying water rights because the villa’s position would be a threat to the local system. The builder just found a way to pipe water from another area.
In 2005, the UN reported that the ecosystems which are the basis for human welfare and economic development are deteriorating, 60% of them exploited in an unsustainable manner. Some of the most crucial ecosystem services such as air- and water purification, the pollination of crops and the seas’ capacity to produce fish are in serious decline.
Albert Einstein once said that our problems cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them. So resilience is vital. On the island of Bali, traditional practices are being revived or have somehow survived, and new approaches in several fields are contributing to the island’s future resilience.
The 1970’s ‘Green Revolution’, which introduced new high yield strains of rice that harvested more quickly, was virtually forced on Indonesia by the then government. These are now known to be much less nutritious strains, and the pesticides they required have destroyed the eels and frogs in the paddy fields and caused huge health issues for many farming families. Many farmers are reverting to the more tasty, more nutritious, strains of rice their grandfathers grew, and despite the additional work required are reverting to organic practices.
Others, says Thomas, are not. In Kapal, a lowland village near Tabanan, many farmers have been around since before the Green Revolution. They say the land used to be soft, loamy and rich. Now there’s a joke that if you kick the dirt you break your toe. The farmers told Thomas they know if they eat more than four eels from the rice fields they will get sick, but they have decided not to change back to organic. Some are using manure but only because chemical fertilisers are more expensive. These are pragmatic decisions by hard-working men who know that they will have to carry 3-5 tonnes of manure to each field, versus 300 kg of chemicals.
Elsewhere, thankfully, different decisions are made. In Wangaya Batan, near Jatiluwih, four farmers had a problem with too much organic waste from coconuts and chickens, and approached Pak Alit Artha Wiguna, from the Balinese Bureau of Agricultural Research. He solved the problem by showing them how to make compost. So they went organic. They are high up in mountain, with fresh unpolluted water. The Green Revolution had been less of an influence there and they were using traditional rice. These four farmers produced such high yields that 90% of the village – more than 45 hectares - has converted to organic, neighbouring subaks are interested and the village has started a training centre of visitors.
Elsewhere, on varying scales, organic farmers are solving the challenge of marketing their produce, because their current buyers don’t want the organic crops. In 1999, Ben Ripple, a US organic farmer from Washington State, began Big Tree Farms (now Island Organics), to help vegetable and fruit farmers, bee-keepers, cacao and coffee growers support their traditional organic practices and find good national and international markets.
As Ben says, “The beautiful system of old simply didn’t work economically and the new Green Revolution’s systems simply didn’t work ecologically. Small farmers were becoming disenfranchised and anything began to look better than the choice to farm.”
Island Organics has become a successful “green” business, largely by working with the farmers and educating them on how to balance ecology with economy, thus making these local communities more resilient.
All over the island there are amazing stories. One of the founders of the Ubud Organic Market, Gede J from Bali Rungu at Baturiti, is a young man with a passionate belief that he’s not just growing vegetables, he’s saving the planet. Starting with only a small piece of land, surrounded by older, wiser, sceptical farmers in the village he’d left and come back to, he has created a substantial farm with delicious fruit and vegetables that he’s now delivering direct to homes and restaurants.
Two years ago Gede’s challenge was learning which crops would work, and convincing his neighbours that he wasn’t crazy. Within a short time those same skeptics were asking why their pesticides weren’t working, since Gede’s tomatoes never had any bugs. Soon some were deferring to him in community meetings, but he’s still frustrated because some won’t listen to him about why their land is dead.
Now he’s learning how to juggle the delivery requirements of all his clients, cultivating more land and gearing up for his dream, which is to be part of an Indonesia-wide organic educational circuit, where people from around the world can come and learn from his example.
Every day more locals and ex-pats are putting their passion into the mix. Cat Wheeler’s columns in the Bali Advertiser and her work on a variety of big projects point individuals and organisations towards more “resilient” practices. The East Bali Poverty Project works with isolated mountain villages on education, infrastructure improvement, natural water resources development, sustainable organic farming and erosion control on steep and dry terrain.
Oded and his team from Sari Organics at Ubud grow and sell organic produce and also have a café surrounded by those gardens, where the innovative and delicious menu is prepared fresh while you sip your organic juice.
Ubud’s KAFE owners Kadek Gunarta and Meghan Pappenheim had huge commitment to Bali’s resilience after the first bomb, leading them in two directions that have both had an enormous impact. First, determined to regain some positive energy herself, she took Yoga Teacher Training. Then they built Ubud’s first dedicated Yoga Studio above KAFE, attracting the world’s best yoga teachers and their students, and this year built the BaliSpirit Yoga Barn and created the Bali Spirit Festival of Yoga, Dance and Music. Yoga’s physical and spiritual practices have always given enormous resilience to the individual.
They also created the balispirit.com website, offering on-line space for anyone who helped Bali, now the top site for Bali’s growing holistic scene, with 150,000 direct hits a month and a network of Indonesian holistic venues and services. The website has had enormous success in “to bring socially responsible tourists to Bali”, as Meghan puts it.
Ni Wayan Lilir, is from a family of traditional Balinese healers. She and her husband I Made Westi, export their Utama Spice natural incenses and essential oils around the world, and take visitors on Bali Herb Walks, to show that we are actually living in a natural pharmacy and have no need to buy many modern medicines.
Canadian Petra Schneider and her evolving team at IDE Foundation, have offered permaculture classes since 1997, and since the tsunami have worked with governments and communities to make Indonesian villages more “disaster-ready”.
Changes often occur so rapidly today that if we don’t work at it, one day we won’t be able to adapt. The actions of organisations and individuals like these to improve human and ecological resilience are hugely important.
Organic markets: Ubud: Saturday 10-1pm, Pizza Bagus; and Wednesday late afternoon, Blooms. Sanur: Thursday 4-8pm, at Manik Organik. Seminyak Market at Fashion Point, Jl Raya Seminyak No 63 (opp Lily Jean, Seminyak) on Friday at 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
