When I was a child, my grandparents had a small farm in
southern British Columbia. Because I was (according
to my mother) a bit of a handful, I was always sent to the
farm during school holidays to give my exhausted parents a
break.
I loved it. Following Grandfather on his rounds I made daily
visits to the orchard, the little forest, the meadow where
the sheep grazed, the compost heaps, the berry patches, the
vegetable gardens, the hen house, the rabbit hutches…
there was always something to see and a great deal for two
elderly people and a little girl to do. We did chores
all day, ate fabulous meals cooked on the old wood stove and
went to bed early. There were no chemical pesticides
and fertilizers in those days. The rabbits, chickens
and sheep enriched the soil and the grandchildren picked caterpillars
and other pests by hand for a fee of ten for a penny.
My farming blood lay dormant for decades, but when I moved
to Bali and contracted some land, it began to boil up insistently.
I wanted to grow fruit and vegetables, herbs, medicinal plants,
flowers. I was indignant to find that it wasn’t
as easy as it looked. Too much sun, too much rain, too
dry, too much shade, not enough nutrients… there was
a lot to learn.
So I was delighted to join an intensive two-week training
program dedicated to applying permaculture principles to tropical
farming conditions. Australian Permaculture trainer
Steve Cran, facilitated by IDEP, taught a pilot training course
near Ubud in April. His permaculture training experience spans
Australia, East Timor and Aceh and he is an expert in optimizing
the growing of food and cash crops on land of all types.
Chakra, a young Ubud man who worked with Steve in Aceh setting
up the IDEP GreenHand Field School, is now in the process
of becoming a permaculture trainer himself. He and his
family have withdrawn their 40 are of rice fields from the
subak with the intention of restoring the land to chemical-free
farming. He hopes that the farm will become a training
centre for other Balinese farmers who want to bring their
land back into balance with nature.
Sitting on a sack of rice husks under a tarpaulin roof, I
watched the faces of the Balinese as Chakra translated Steve’s
lectures on sustainable agriculture techniques, waste management,
village design and just generally producing as much food as
possible. Although the concepts were new to them, the
wisdom was old. “These are techniques your ancestors
used,” Steve kept reminding them. The older ones
among them nodded in recognition.
Each day we did practical work in the garden. The Balinese
seemed surprised to find the foreigners working beside them
in the sun. We explained that most of us came from farming
stock in Canada, Australia and the United States. We,
too, had a long tradition of gotong royong to build barns
and help neighbours bring in the harvest. A radio
sitting on a stump played Bob Marley as we companionably split
bamboo, wove fences, dug holes and hauled mulch for Chakra’s
new kitchen garden. “Every little thing’s going
to be all right…” sang Bob as we hung a chicken-proof
gate, rolled boulders around raised beds and planted out seedlings.
The Balinese have been growing crops with chemical fertilizers
and pesticides for about two decades now. Some of the
chemicals sold here are considered too dangerous for use in
developed countries, and Bali is indeed seeing a rise in the
number of cancer cases and birth defects. Chemical farming
adds no nourishment to the soil, and over a period of years
the topsoil dies and is washed away. Fertility of farmland
around the world is being lost because of chemical farming
practices even as populations are increasing. The chemical
companies that make the fertilizers and pesticides have been
buying up seed companies, and hundreds of vegetable species
have disappeared to be replaced by genetically modified organisms
(GMO). Don’t get me started on this one.
What can a handful of organic growers do in the face of overwhelming
corporate control of the agricultural sector? We can
teach by example, demonstrate that organic farming can pay.
As everywhere else, Balinese farmers resist change.
But when they see their neighbour successfully growing a new
crop or using a new technique, they are quick to follow.
Chakra wants his land to be that example. He remembers
the rich biodiversity of his rice fields 20 years ago and
compares that memory to the sterile, stagnant fields where
his daughter now plays. The topsoil, no longer held
together with living micro organisms, is gone. Until
recently, the rice was nourished by chemicals alone.
Last season, even the chemicals didn’t work.
It has to change, but change takes time. Building up land
starved by two decades of chemical farming is hard work.
Sitting on my sack of rice husks, I watched brows furrow as
Steve spelled out the cost of growing a hectare of rice with
chemicals compared to a hectare of organic rice. His
audience of Balinese farmers had never crunched the numbers.
But even with this clear evidence before them, it will be
too much of a stretch for most.
In Japan, a farmer called Fukaroka started the One Straw Revolution
about 50 years ago. A single farmer committed to change
is as weak as a single rice straw, he taught, but many farmers
working together are a strong force. If enough inspired
people in Bali work together, they can bring the island’s
land back into balance and re-create the abundance that has
always been the birthright of the Balinese people.
