With the dramatic decline of the tourism industry, the Balinese are looking at an economic future painted in different strokes.
The Balinese are no different from people everywhere in wanting a better future for their children. When Wayan sells his rice field so he can send his son to hotel school, he figures he’s making a good investment in the future of the family. But the son now works in a big hotel in Nusa Dua for subsistence wages and has to pay a high rent in order to live near his work. The family is no further ahead and the rice field is gone. Now that the tourists have stopped coming, the son will probably be laid off indefinitely.
"Big hotels hire lots of Balinese, but mostly at low wages. Much of the income from the tourism industry doesn’t even stay here," a Balinese friend told me. "The majority of star-rated hotel owners are not Balinese, and they take their profits home with them. Most of the food and beverages consumed by tourists are imported. Top management positions are almost always held by non-Balinese."
For several generations the Balinese have been buying into a tourism-driven economy which was never really theirs. Now many are taking a harder look at the big picture.
"During the aftermath of the bombing, I was at Sanglah Hospital from the first day," says Nyoman from Ekasari. "I found that I was constantly asking myself – if Bali is so rich, why are there no ambulances? No good hospitals? No burn unit with trained staff?
"The crisis made me see that the benefits of tourism have not reached many Balinese in terms of an infrastructure that serves them. There are some good hospitals and universities in Indonesia, but they are not here. We need to build a strong economy that is not so reliant on external factors, an economy that generates and keeps a large part of its income within the community."One option is to develop more export-oriented cottage industries which are not reliant on tourism. These continue to thrive in their low-key way through economic crisis after crisis. Shops and boutiques all over the world still need the silver jewellery, garments, handicrafts and art produced by Balinese hands. Community-based industries, though small, are significant because most of the benefits remain in the neighborhood.
Quite a number of entrepreneurial individuals and organizations are helping to develop alternative income sources for Balinese communities. One example is Yayasan Mack.
Located high in the mountains near Pupuan, Yayasan Mack has become one of the district’s largest employers. Its oldest and perhaps best-known project is Bali Asli. The first product was a range of jams, preserves, pickles and sauces that have been produced here since 1992 and are now found on many supermarket shelves.
"We were the first to produce home-made commercial jams and preserves in Bali," explains Maya Pagandiri, one of MACK’s founders. "Whenever possible, we try to use chemical-free fruit. All our products are bottled according to USDA standards."
About the same time, Maya moved to fill a niche for home-baked breads. Tumuku Bakery became the first in Bali to use home-ground wheat and to bake without additives. The staff now produces 19 different breads, cakes, pies and cookies, including a wonderful mulberry pie featuring organically grown fruit from the bakery’s own plantation.
This must be the most spectacularly situated bakery in the world. The converted house sits on a hilltop surrounded by lush mountains and clouded valleys, nested in a wild garden of fruit and flowers. No wonder everything tastes so good.
Today, Bali Asli’s most successful business is soap. Five years ago the Yayasan began to research and produce soaps made from pure, natural ingredients. Today, a small workshop is surrounded by racks of fragrant drying soap. Inside, laughing women meticulously hand-wrap and label every bar.
After touring the operation and learning the basics of soap manufacture, I resolved never to buy commercially produced soap again. Although all soap naturally contains 20—30% glycerin, a natural skin conditioner, big soap factories routinely separate it out. No wonder ordinary cheap soap dries out the skin. Then the clever marketers repackage the glycerin they’ve taken out of the soap and sell it as a skin lotion because our skin is dry from using their soap...
Bali Asli’s soaps are based on pure coconut and palm/palm kernel oils purchased from local producers. They contain up to 30% natural glycerin and are scented with essential oils from around the world. There’s no harsh soap smell in the workshop — the soap is so mild you have to stick your nose right into a bar of it to detect the subtle fragrance. Transparent soaps, which are even milder, gleam like topaz in the drying racks.
It has taken 2 years to research the soap recipes and much of the simple production equipment had to be made on site. Now the staff at Bali Asli can produce up to 20,000 bars of soap a month. Liquid soap will soon be available.
Commercial shampoos contain many chemicals, some of which have been linked to cancer. Bali Asli is close to marketing an all-natural shampoo containing neem oil to help control head lice.
The Yaysan also runs a neem oil extraction center and an organic farm nearby. Altogether, about 30 families are supported by Bali Asli’s initiatives and this will increase as business grows. Bali Asli has never laid off an employee, even during the worst of the economic crisis, and aims to employ as many people as possible.
Another example of a successful community-based business is CV Exelsa Prima, started by Dutch horticulturalist Kees van Riet in Java. The concept has been so successful he’s now planning to bring it to Bali.
In the 1980s Kees worked for Dutch NGOs in Indonesia. He watched the income generation projects he was involved in flounder one after the other because they were not designed to be sustainable. In 1990 he started a business to demonstrate how income generation projects could be run more successfully. His Indonesian company exports slow-growing tropical plants to Holland for distribution around Europe.
At first Kees established a nursery with Javanese staff, but since 1994 most of the plant propagation has been done by groups of local farmers on their own land. Kees provides the seeds, poly bags and planting medium and the farmers raise the plants to a height of 18", when Kees would buy them back. He no longer maintains a nursery, just a small area in which he ‘finishes’ the plants, ensuring that they have an even and pleasing appearance. Kees hopes that eventually this quality control step can be undertaken by the farmers as well. Finally, the plants are loaded into climate-controlled containers for their 3 week sea journey to Europe. The 3 groups of about 20 farmers each produce about 1000 potted plants and earn between 25 and 30 million rupiah a month. "Without opportunities like this farmers can’t establish a business, because they don’t have access to credit," Kees observes.
He is eager to bring this concept to Bali. The species of raphis palm which he grows in Java isn’t suitable, so he’s now researching appropriate plants saleable in Europe that can be grown here. He’s also interested in starting a project producing the coconut fibre used as a potting medium for his plant business. "If I can find a group of coconut farmers here who can sell me fibre, I won’t have to bring it in from Java. We are guaranteed customers for each other." He’s happy to discuss any business ideas that benefit local communities.
Kees’ long years of working in the development sector have given him a keen sense of what must change in order for ordinary people to benefit. "Until recently, Indonesia has been selling raw materials and importing finished products. Yaysan Mack has the right idea — use the raw palm oil to make an environmentally friendly, ethically produced soap for export. The missing link is in marketing these products abroad."
Micro industries such as these will never employ the numbers of Balinese involved in tourism. But they offer sustainable, community-based employment that will withstand many of the world’s economic storms.
