Bali's Golden Harvest

The beauty of Bali's irrigated rice fields is unsurpassed. Tier upon tier of hand-sculpted paddies shape the countryside in an ever-changing, panorama of colour. Streams are dammed far up-hill, and water is syphoned off through hand built channels to fields far distant in a complex system that guarantees equal division amongst all farmers in times of limited supply. Smaller dams and tiny weirs divide and re-divide the streams, regulating the cascades of water in a series of waterfalls and pipes that ensure the furthest fields receive their life-giving supply.

The eternal cycles of planting, cultivating and harvesting follow a different rotation all over the island, resulting in a verdant tapestry of colour that changes from day to day. Prior to planting, the highly manicured fields are pools of sky-reflecting water. As the pale green seedling grow into a lush carpet their colour deepens into a vivid emerald. Heads of ripening rice appear, green gives way to a sea of gold, then suddenly harvest strips the fields bare leaving a dry stubble and a haze of billowing smoke as the straw is burnt.

Rice is the most singularly important crop in Bali, the staple food of life. An entire village infrastructure is involved in organizing and supervising growing and irrigation. The art of rice cultivation, evolved since the dawn of time, is highly complex, involving a great deal of care and communal work, as well as an extensive series of complicated rituals to ensure the blessing and protection of the deities. As with all aspects of Balinese life, the cultivation of rice is intimately associated with the supernatural. Rice is considered the manifestation of God as Dewi Sri, the rice mother, and as such is treated with love and reverence. The Supreme God, Ida Sanghyang Widhi Wasa, is present in a multitude of manifestations in all things, both good and evil. This duality of positive and negative aspects permeates the universe, and every Balinese spends a great deal of effort, time and money in maintaining the equilibrium between the two, in order to attain a happy and prosperous life.

Dewi Sri, as with all things in the universe, is both male and female. She is represented in a simple image of two figures made out of rice stalks, fifty-four for the female figure and fifty-eight for the male. Tied together in a bunch, the heads of the rice form a skirt and the stalks are decorated with bits of coconut leaf and bamboo as the head. This double-cone shape is called a Tjili, and its shape is repeated in the offerings, decorations, even in the paintings and woodcarvings, a symbol of fertility.

Only fifteen years ago Bali was having to import 10,000 tons of rice a year due to the increase in population and losses caused by failure of crops, pestilence and disease. Intensive research by the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, the Philippines, resulted in a new hybrid strain of highly resistant dwarf rice that provided a heavy harvest as many as three times a year. After further research by the Indonesian Department of Agriculture at Bogor, Java, this seed was distributed by the government throughout Indonesia. Now nearly ninety percent of the rice grown in Bali is this new "miracle" strain, and the island is exporting tens of thousands of tons of rice each year.

Padi Bali, the traditionally grown variety of rice, has become almost a luxury that few people can afford to grow, let alone eat. This is a pity in a way, as the plant is comparatively much more beautiful, the grain more tasty. Padi Bali grows to a height of 140 cm and has a full-fruited, graceful arching head. It is cut in the fields and tied into bushy-headed bales, which are dried and then carried home to be stored in the family jineng, rice barn. The newer strains of rice are short and stumpy, only growing to a height of about 65 cm. The grains axe easily knocked from the head, so this rice cannot be tied up and carried home, instead it is thrashed in the field and taken home in sacks. However its advantages fax overwhelm such minor fallbacks. Not only is it more disease and insect-resistant, it produces a far greater tonnage per hectare, and only takes 120 days to reach maturity as compared to 150 days for the Padi Bali.

Subak Organization

Groups of farmers with a common water supply feeding their rice fields are members of the same cooperative subak. During the dry season, which usually falls between April and September, the farmers rely on irrigation. The rugged landscape, with its steep hillsides and deep valleys, poses problems in water supply unsur-mountable for the individual. Subak organizations, founded many centuries ago, have bean able to share resources and manpower to accomplish this feat collectively. Water sources were tapped by the ancestors, and a complex system of sharing evolved to control the division of this water supply, repair the vital water channels and prevent theft of water or conflict amongst the members.

Bali has approximately 1200 subaks, each with an average of 200 members, and an average field area of 50 hectares. Membership is compulsory for every farmer owning land within each area. Needless to say, survival would be impossible alone. There is no place for individualism in this system, which is based on sharing and mutual support. Periodically a leader known as a Kepala Subak or Pekasih, is elected . He serves his group unpaid, but is sometimes rewarded extra water or land priviledges. His assistants are the Pengliman, in charge of work and maintenance projects, and the Kelian Munduk, a supervisor of water distribution. "Choose the owner of the lowest rice fields as Kelian Munduk," they say in a popular joke. "He’ll make sure the water gets to his fields, and everyone will get their share in between!"

Regular subak meetings are held; attendance is compulsory. Those who fall to show up at meetings are fined. Group decisions are thus made on the important issues such as propitious dates for planting and harvesting, ceremonies and offerings that must be carried out, the times for fertilizing and use of insecticides, the type of seed to be used, as well as the control, cleaning and maintenance of the irrigation dams and canals. Each subak has its own rice fleld temple where principal rice ceremonies are held. The smaller shrines in rice fields and near water supply sources are usually the individual responsibilities of the farmers or groups of farmers in the vicinity.

The highly sophisticated subak system provides optimum communication. and organization, an infrastructure with which the Ministry of Agriculture can work closely to implement effective improvements on a large scale. An official liason officer known as the Sedahan Agung is appointed within each of the eight Kabupaten, He is directly responsible to the Department of Agriculture in Denpasar. There are in turn several Sedahan Yeh, the overseers of irrigation, plus a number of field staff and extensi6n agents, some of who organize the purchase of rice at guaranteed floor prices, transportation, milling, storage and export of surplus, assistance in the control of pestilence and natural disaster.

Cycles of Rice Cultivation

Traditions in the practice of rice farming vary subtly from one village to other, but the basic cycles of planting, cultivation and harvest, along with their constant element of prayer and offering, are very similar. At the very first hoeing of the fields, ngendang, or the "opening up", which takes place approximately 25 days prior to planting, a small offering is borne to the field to ensure the blessing of the deities and ward off evil spirits. Then the fields are hoed and subsequently flooded and the plough or tenggala, pulled by one or two cows, completes the preparation for the planting of the first delicate seedlings.

The seedbed or pemulihan takes first priority. A few square meters in the corner of the field are enclosed, and the germinated seeds that have soaked two days in advance are broadcasted by hand into the flooded soil, or in the case of Padi Bali, entire seed heads, complete with their stalks, are laid side by side on the moist soil.

After 20 to 25 days in the nursery the seedlings are ready for transplantation. Fertilization is carried out in the preceding days, then on a favorable day according to the calendar the men gather together to begin the nyajaan, or transplantation of seedlings, carefully uprooting them from their bed and tying them in bunches on round trays made from split bamboo. The First ceremonial planting is known as ngewiwit. Prayer and offerings are made in one corner of the field, then nine seeding are Planted, one in each of the cardinal directions, one in the center and one on the intermediary directions, completing a pattern known as the nawa sangga, the symbol of cosmic orientations prevalent in many ceremonies. The barefoot men then step into the soft mud, forming a row. Two to five seedlings are thrust into finger holes in the mud, spaced one handbreadth apart in neatly a4med rows, as the team of men advance through the mud, their trays of seeding sliding back and forth in between.

Ceremonial requirements during the first 35 days sasih or lunar month of growth, vary from village to village. The major prerequisite is an offering made on the 35th day of nasi warna, cooked rice coloured symbolically in the four Hindu colours of red, yellow, white and black. Further urea fertilizations are recommended at 35 to 40 days and 55 to 60 days. Another small ceremony takes place at 70 days known as sayut nagasari, a small offering of cooked rice, flowers, rice wine and holy water.

As the grains begin to form. on the heads and the ears swell, the rice is said to be "beling" or pregnant, a condition which requires special loving care and attention. The fields are transformed into gay scenes festooned with long strings of banners made from discard6d clothing, plastic, cans and whizzing bamboo propellers. Scarecrows appear and little thatched huts are erected at strategic places. The men, women and children all take turn in guarding the precious crop, rattling their bird-scarers and shouting themselves hoarse to protect their harvest from the winged marauders. As the ripening padi colours golden, irrigation stops and harvest rituals begin.

Harvest is a communal affair. Padi Bali must be cut stalk by stalk and tied in bundles to be carried home. The new hybrid varieties are scythed just above ground level with a sickle, then directly thrashed in the field by the women who bang the bundles of rice on a board till the grains fall off on a spread canvas, ready to be scooped into sacks. These will later be taken to the nearest mill where the padi is sold outright or dehusked for a small fee.

Polished white rice is preferred by all Balinese, even though the husk and embryo contain valuable vitamin B 1 and protein. Traditionally the Padi Bali is threshed on mats spread on the hardened earth by pounding it with long wooden poles that have weighted ends. Two or three women will stand around the pile of rice stalks, their poles rhythmically pounding, moving alternately from one band to the other with a grace that belies the effort and concentration involved. Dehusking is sometimes accomplished by pounding it in a large wooden trough or lesung. The motions create a rhythmic cadence of sound as the padi is transformed into beras, a coarser grain, flecked with pieces of husk, which has more nutrients than the milled grain. The flaky pieces of husk are winnowed out of the pounded rice on a large bamboo tray. As it is tossed in the air and shaken in a circular motion the chaff is carried off in the breeze.

Just after harvest, or in some villages just before, a large rice ceremony is held in the subak temple, known as Ngusaba Nini, in thanksgiving to Dewi Sri for the gift of herself. The temple is beautifully decorated and filled with offerings of exquisite palm-leaf weavings, brightly coloured rice cakes, cooked rice of several colours, fruits, fragrant flowers, roast ducks, chickens and suckling pigs, even rice wine. These are dedicated to pleasing the deities, giving them an enjoyable visit, just in the same way that honoured guests would be entertained. After the essence, or Sari, of the food has been offered in prayer the food itself is shared amongst everyone.

This food of life, much blessed on its journey from the fields to the kitchen, is simply prepared each day by steaming or boiling. Sometimes it is cooked in little woven palm-leaf containers called Ketipat, which form a solid glutinous lump of pressed rice that can be easily carried to the field or temple and cut into edible sections.

Every day, after the morning rice is cooked, a tray of little banana leaf squares are prepared, each with a pinch of the cooked rice, or nasi, and casually placed on the ground around the family compound to keep the evil spirits at bay. Like people, they can become angry and mischievous if they are hungry or neglected.

The rice cakes for offerings to the higher deities are of infinite variety in size, shape and oolour. These delicious jaja, sold in great quantities in the morning markets, decorate the towering offerings that the women bring to the temple at festival time.

This perpetual giving thanks for the benifence of the Gods in providing joy, sustenance and protection from evil is the very basis of the Balinese way of life, which is an everyday celebration of religion. The majority of the population are rice farmers, and all depend on rice as a staple diet. The cycles of rice farming, regular phases of busy communal activity interspersed with periods of leisure time, have contributed to a lifestyle with ample room for intense creativity.

Bali is a tropical island of plenty. The rich volcanic soil of the island is watered by an endless supply of rivers and streams that originate from bottomless crater lakes which miraculously filter out into a myriad of streams and springs and are diverted by centuries old expertise into a maze of irrigation channels that feed the entire island. Nature provides abundantly. Bananas, coconuts, mangoes and paw-paw grow wild, not to mention an entire range of medicinal plants and roots which offer herbal remedies to every ailment known to man. Ducks feed in the rice fields, cleaning them of insects and pests. The sway-backed pigs clean up the rubbish and the waste in the back yards of the family compounds. The grass around the padi fields and beside the roads is kept neatly trimmed by the young boys who scythe it each day and carry it home in baskets for the cows. Entire holy days are devoted to the birthdays of trees and animals, and an ecological chain of mutual support exists on all levels.

On the mountainous slopes grow cloves and coffee, and vanilla vines fill every patch of uncultivated land. Indeed it seems that this island is the Gods' favoured earthly abode, and such is the Balinese premise of the universe. Point of origin is the great Mt. Agung which lords over the entire island, a towering reminder that we are only human, extremely vulnerable to the powers of the supernatural and subterranean.

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