"This rice is excellent," I declared to a fellow diner at Batan Waru Restaurant recently. "I wonder where it came from?" He tasted his and shrugged. "Rice is rice," he said.
Rice is NOT just rice. Like potatoes, this staple comes in many varieties, each with a distinct flavour, texture and aroma. We're lucky to have an excellent variety of rice available in Bali now -- beras merah, padi cica (Bali's indigenous white rice from Tampak Siring), black sticky rice, organic brown rice from Java, unhusked red rice and jasmine rice from Thailand, risotto from Italy, Indian basmati, short-grain Japanese rice and the ubiquitous nasi biasa, the flavourless, scentless, tasteless commercial hybrid rice that comes in those big bags and probably has about as much nutrition as a piece of cardboard.
At a community fund-raiser in Ubud a few weeks ago people crowded around a table selling wonderful, freshly harvested organic rice. It was presented in drawstring cloth bags of unbleached cotton with a little window so buyers could preview the fat, glossy grains of padi cica. Where did it come from? "I grow it," said Ed modestly. "Near Tampak Siring." Intrigued, I drove up the mountain to find out why an American artist is trying to re-introduce traditional rice culture in Bali.
About 20 years ago, a new rice hybrid was introduced to Bali and gradually this higher-yield, faster-growing crop replaced padi cica as the island's main rice crop. It required chemical fertilizers, however, which gradually depleted the organisms in the soil and caused the rich, living topsoil to float away with the irrigation water. As a result, these days most commercial rice in Bali is grown in the subsoil -- dense, infertile clay which the growers plow in an attempt to distribute the burned or half-rotted rice straw from the last harvest.
Ed set out to prove to his neighbours that he could grow organic Bali rice more profitably than they could grow commercial rice with chemical fertilizer. He proved his point with his latest harvest of 50 kilos from 3 are of land. Top yields for commercial hybrid rice growers are 20 kilograms an are, but few get that much. Ed expects to increase his yield by up to 40% as his land becomes increasingly fertile. Padi cica takes only 10 days longer to grow.
" It took about 18 months to recondition the rice fields I've used as a test area," he explained. "There was lots of trial and error before I figured out it was all about bacteria."
The kind of bacteria that provides nutrients to plants requires oxygen to thrive. Between crops, Ed dries out the field for a month, top-dresses it with composted cow manure or rice straw and then gently rakes the surface. Most of the bacteria live within an inch of the surface and the topsoil is friable, so there's no need to plow. Then he plants his rice and goes away for about 4 months. His padi field teems with eels, frogs, snakes and other creatures feeding on the many insects and each other, and providing nutrients. Every once in a while he pulls out the weeds and composts them. After harvesting, all the rice roots are cut out and composted too.
This is Ed's third harvest. "My first harvest was only 18 kilograms because the land wasn't in good shape and I let the gardeners plow it. The next crop was 28 kilograms. Then I took advice from some of the older farmers around here and went from 28 to 50 kilos in one crop, using the same seed. There's very little algae in my fields compared to my neighbours' and the soil is much cooler. Not only that, but the hybrid rice crops around here all failed recently because of a virus. The Bali rice is resistant to disease and drought and doesn't fall down when it rains." He's now put another 23 are into organic Bali rice.
To demonstrate the thick layer of topsoil that's been established in just two years, Ed plunged his arm halfway to the elbow in the rich muck of his padi field. As a farmer's grand daughter, I appreciated the gesture. The earth looked good enough to eat.
Later, over organically grown herb tea, Ed detailed the economic facts of growing rice organically compared to using chemical-dependent hybrids. "There's no money for small holders in growing hybrid rice. If local growers kept track of their outlays and benefits, they would all go organic overnight," he argues.
" Look at the numbers. On 3 are I grew 50 kilos of rice which I can sell for between Rp 4,500 and Rp 10,000 a kilo locally or up to Rp 25,000 in a gourmet grocery store. My income from the harvest was at least Rp 225,000 and it could be over a million. My cash outlay was nil - I used seed from my last harvest and fertilizer from my own cow or compost heap, and I don't need to plow. So my income is all profit.
" Wayan in the next field grew 60 kilos of commercial hybrid rice on his 3 are, about 10 days faster. The top price he can sell his harvest for is Rp 2,000 a kilo (usually it will be about half that), so at best he made Rp 120,000. Unless he has his own cow, he'd have to pay Rp 35,000 twice to have his field plowed. Then he'd need about Rp 25,000 for two applications of chemical fertilizer. So he ends up with just Rp 25,000 for all that work. Even if he has a cow and can do his plowing for free, I still make at least twice as much money and my soil keeps getting better. He has to work harder, too"
Ironically, Wayan then goes out and pays up to Rp 4,500 a kilo for padi cica, because he doesn't want to eat the tasteless hybrid rice any more than we do.
So why is Ed doing this? "I never stopped being a hippie and wanting to help make the world a better place," he grins. "There could be huge benefits to local growers if they adopted organic rice growing. The Balinese leave the rice fields to their children, so the kids will inherit fertile land that produces high yields of commercially valuable rice. The growers make higher incomes for less labour. And the older people earn money harvesting the crop. Padi cica needs to be harvested one stalk at a time, and young people don't have the patience for that. When I put out a call for harvesters for my 3 are, about 30 old women showed up. They were very excited; no one had grown padi cica around here in years. They cleared the field in one pass and cleaned every stalk of rice by hand.
" My long term plan is to start an organic rice co-op in Tampak Siring. It could bring a lot of prosperity. I'd like to see a cow in every field and a motorcycle in every shed."
Two huge bags of rice -- the harvest from a larger field -- had been delivered that afternoon. Ed opened one bag and we plunged our hands deep into the living, fragrant grains, still warm from the milling. Honest rice. If Ed has his way, it will not be a rarity for much longer.
