Bali to have fewer farmers in coming years: Census - Jakarta Post
Bali, famed for its multi-tiered paddy fields and strong agricultural society, will have fewer farmers and a small new generation of farmers leaving the island's agricultural sector in dire straits, a census revealed.
The agriculture census has been recently completed by Bali Statistics Agency.
The census revealed that in the 10-year period between 2003 and 2013, farming households in Bali decreased by around 83,494 households, or 8,400 households every year, an annual decrease of 1.84 percent.
In 2003, Bali had 491,725 farming households, while 10 years later, in 2013, that had fallen to only 408,229 households.
Luh Kartini, professor of agriculture at Udayana University, said that Bali's tourism used art, culture and tradition as famous lures.
"But the real essence of Balinese culture is based on the island's agricultural society," the professor said, adding that spiritual and cultural tourism would be soon lose ground.
"Such tourism will not exist in the future," stated Kartini.
"Balinese Hindus perform entire rituals to pay their respects to the earth and its abundant harvests," she said.
The present reality was dismaying as farmers and the agricultural sector received inadequate attention and protection from downstream to upstream, the scholar argued.
The government, she said, should assist the farmers, ranging from the procurement and distribution of seeds and fertilizers, to pre- and post-harvest handling, including marketing harvests.
"Rocketing prices for food, cost of living and education have forced farmers to leave their profession to find other jobs," noted Kartini.
To make things worse, farmers were selling their land to outside investors, who would later convert it into business and housing complexes.
"When the rice fields are sold, farmers will stop performing rituals related to their properties—meaning that the tradition will be extinct forever," the professor said.
Pan Marwan is one of the poor farmers possessing only less than one hectare of paddy field (2,500 square meters) in Badung regency.
"I have had to gradually sell part of my rice field because of the burden of daily necessities," Marwan said. The farmer said he could not afford to send his children to school if he worked as a farmer.
"Now with a smaller plot of land, I cannot grow paddy. I have had to change to fast-growing crops, like seasonal fruit and vegetables. This also means that we do not have to perform elaborate rituals related to subak tradition,"
Marwan said.
In Balinese agricultural society, farmers are required to conduct rituals at every step of their cultivation process. The day they sow the seeds must start with certain rituals. During harvest season, the rituals are much more elaborate.
In other prominent areas, like Tabanan and Gianyar, the island's rice baskets, the number of people willing to work in the agricultural sector is also decreasing sharply.
The rapid growth of the tourism and business sectors has led to many farmers giving up their ancestral lands.
In Denpasar, only 6,000 households are still working their land.
The agriculture census has been conducted six times across Indonesia.
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