Master Thesis Rural Development Sociology

An ethnography study of farming style in Gianyar, Bali,

Indonesia

Adi Nugraha
MSc. Development & Rural Innovation (MDR-27)
Thesis Code: SDC-80439

Wageningen University Supervisor:

June, 2015 Dr. Dik Roth
Rural Development Sociology Group (RDS)

Reader:

Dr. Alberto Arce

Rural Development Sociology Group (RDS)

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Acknowledgement
I wish to thank my supervisor Dik Roth for his valuable guidance, academic support and
patience throughout all the times of the completion of my thesis.

I wish to extend heartfelt thanks to my family in Bandung, Indonesia. To my parents Mahfud

Arifin and Ida Damayanti, and my siblings; without their support, love, prayers and
encouragement my wish to study in Wageningen University would remain only a wishful
thinking.

My next sincere gratitude goes to my brother Abdulrahman Al-Fraih and his family in Kuwait
for the invaluable supports and encouragement, and to MDR-27 family: you guys welcomed
me warmly, became my second family and made me enjoy the time living in Wageningen.

Next, I would like to thank my study advisor Marleen van Nooij for her assistance during my
study times and I am also thankful to the second reader Alberto Arce. Warm thanks also go
to Conny Almekinders and Gerard Verschoor for helpful coaching during Thesis Path
sessions.

Last but not least, I sincerely thank Pak Sunarka, IDEP Foundation, Ibu Petra Schneider, Pak
Ketut Karyada, Ibu Kartini, and all the respondents for interesting discussion, and
complementary information during my fieldwork.

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Abstract
This thesis aimed to describe the macro-micro linkages in agriculture sector of Gianyar, Bali,
Indonesia. This study focused on the agricultural development paths of Gianyar and
heterogeneity of perspectives, farming styles, and strategies of farmers who decided to
follow the path of agricultural modernization, and those who chose to explore alternative
ways of farming. This research was conducted as a case study which allows a flexible
response to social processes evoked by the events analysed. Ethnographic approach
provided a comprehensive understanding of community perceptions and what was
happening in the community, and it was also useful in identifying the experiences
embedded in local practices, culture and society. Data were collected through various
methods, including field observation, participant observation, in-depth interviews, and
document and artefact analysis. The results of this study shows that structural elements in
Gianyar agriculture pose hindrances and opportunities, creating rooms for manoeuvre for
farmers, and also influencing farmers’ ability in exercising their agency. However, some
farmers were able to exercise their agency in choosing which structures to be attached to,
which farming styles and strategies to practice. This condition has led to the heterogeneity
of perspective towards the current agricultural development path. Respectively it
contributed to the emergence of different farming styles and farming strategies in the micro
level. Furthermore, this thesis is not only about the differences in perspective on agricultural
modernization, but also about the liberty of generating alternative ideas of farming, and the
capability and knowledge-ability of farmers that should not be underestimated.

Keywords: macro-micro linkages, agricultural development, farming styles, farming

strategies, Indonesia

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Table of Contents
CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................1
1.1. The Theme ...................................................................................................................................2
1.2. Problem Statement – disputed modernization and unheeded local knowledge .......................4
1.3. Research Questions and Objectives ............................................................................................4
1.4. Theoretical Framework ...............................................................................................................5
1.4.1. Macro-Micro Linkages Analysis .........................................................................................5
1.4.2. Farming Logics and Farmers Strategies .............................................................................7
1.5. Research Methods .................................................................................................................... 10
1.6. Country Information ................................................................................................................. 11
1.5.1. Indonesia ........................................................................................................................ 11
1.5.2. Bali .................................................................................................................................. 13
1.7. Structure of the Thesis ............................................................................................................. 14
CHAPTER II: THE TRAJECTORY OF BALINESE AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF
AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT IN BALI ................................................................................ 16
2.1. Pre Green Revolution Utopia ................................................................................................... 16
2.2. The Milestone ........................................................................................................................... 21
2.3. The Transformation .................................................................................................................. 24
2.4. Modern Complications ............................................................................................................. 26
CHAPTER III: THE STRUCTURES THAT INFLUENCE BALINESE AGRICULTURE ........................................... 29
3.1. Post-Reformation Era ............................................................................................................... 29
3.1.1. The Concept of THK (Tri Hita Karana) ............................................................................ 30
3.2. Institutions................................................................................................................................ 33
3.2.1. Subak (Local Non-State Social Organization) ................................................................. 35
3.2.2. Dinas Pertanian (Agriculture Agenct)............................................................................. 39
3.2.3. Balai Penyuluhan dan Teknologi Pertanian (BPTP) – bureau of agricultural extension
and technology assessment ........................................................................................... 40
3.2.4. IDEP (Indonesian Development for Education in Permaculture) Foundation and BOA
(Bali Organic Association)............................................................................................... 43
3.3. Tourism ..................................................................................................................................... 46
3.4. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 51
CHAPTER IV: AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT AT A CROSSROADS (Perspectives on Agricultural
Modernization in Bali) ......................................................................................................... 52

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 4.1. The Pros - Agricultural modernization is the Solution! ............................................................ 53
4.2. The Cons – Modern approaches do not fit us! ......................................................................... 60
4.3. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 67
CHAPTER V: FARMING STYLES (The Heterogeneity of Farming Styles in Gianyar, Bali) .......................... 69
5.1. Farming Styles and Farmers’ Strategies ................................................................................... 70
5.1.1. Conventional farmers ..................................................................................................... 70
5.1.2. Alternative farmers ........................................................................................................ 74
5.2. Conclusions ............................................................................................................................... 80
CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................. 83
Conclusions… ...................................................................................................................................... 83
Discussion…......................................................................................................................................... 86
References…............................................................................................................................................. 88

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Figures
Figure 1: Macro-micro linkages in farming style (Hebinck and Ploeg 1997) .......................................... 7
Figure 2: the logic of the peasant (van der Ploeg 2008) ......................................................................... 8
Figure 3: the logic of the entrepreneur (van der Ploeg 2008) ................................................................ 8
Figure 4: the structure of rural development at farm enterprise level (Ploeg and Roep 2003) ............. 9
Figure 5: map of Indonesia ................................................................................................................... 11
Figure 6: Administrative map of Bali..................................................................................................... 13
Figure 7: Ani-ani .................................................................................................................................... 18
Figure 8: Traditional rice storage .......................................................................................................... 19
Figure 9: Original padi bali rice, harvested in 1921 (Sunarka) .............................................................. 20
Figure 10: Permaculture Training (IDEP)............................................................................................... 43
Figure 11: Self-bred organic seeds ........................................................................................................ 44
Figure 12: Elementary students participating in permaculture course ................................................ 45
Figure 13: Wayan's multi-functioning farm .......................................................................................... 72
Figure 14: Sunarka's cattle waste management ................................................................................... 79
Figure 15: macro-micro linkages of Gianyar’s agriculture .................................................................... 85

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CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION
The world of agriculture has always triggered my curiosity. I'm interested in unravelling its
complexity with special regard to farmers who are tend to be marginalized. It was during my
involvement in research projects, that I became familiar with some of the realities of
agriculture. I started to get to know of the problems in agricultural area, from the
production level, distribution, to marketing. However, at that time, my perspective was still
limited to the knowledge of a bachelor student who was during his study and working time
being highly influenced by modernization-minded agricultural economists, who were mostly
focusing on improving the livelihood of farmers by increasing farmers’ income through the
enhancement of some dimensions of agricultural process such as increasing productivity,
improving product quality, and/or targeting a more lucrative market channel, or in short, it
is part of agricultural modernization.

That is why I thought that if I want to help the farmers, I have to keep on getting involved in
exogenous development activities which bring aid to the farmers not only in form of
materials, but also knowledge in a top-down way. I always had the thoughts that they are
too left behind, they have to be modernised! Development just has to come from those who
are ‘smarter’, ‘richer’, and more ‘developed’ than farmers, that was what I thought. Until I
learned that farmers are not objects of development; that they are social actors who also
have the capabilities to make decision and react differently toward the situations within
their room for manoeuvre.

Unfortunately, the previous thoughts represent how most of the policy makers and project
implementers think about farmers in my country. That is not to say that they are wrong, but
it would be better if I can share another (side of) point of view which is still not well known
in Indonesia. That agricultural development can occur not only by external interventions
(exogenous) but also from within the society itself (endogenous); that pushing the farmers
towards capitalistic agriculture is not the only way to improve their livelihood; there are
alternatives which emerged from farmers’ own capability of interacting with their nature,
that might work better in certain circumstances. However, unlike the adoption of external
technologies (such as chemicals, machineries, and infrastructures) and knowledge
introduced by agricultural modernization which can easily be noticed, the alternative ways
of farming that mostly emerged at the grass root level are often unnoticed, concealed, and
even in some cases in the past, were prohibited.

Through this thesis I would like to explore the heterogeneity of perspectives, farming styles,
and strategies of farmers who decided to follow the path of agricultural modernization, and
those who chose to explore alternative ways of farming in Gianyar Regency, Bali, Indonesia.
I think it is interesting to see how farmers perceive agricultural modernization, are they in
favour or against it? What settings allowed or constrained the farmers to have that certain
perspective? What farming styles emerged or are emerging? What are the farmers’
strategies in dealing with their agricultural problems? How and why? These issues are, in

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short, the structure of this thesis. Furthermore, this thesis is not only about the differences
in perspective on agricultural modernization, but also about the liberty of generating
alternative ideas of farming, and the capability and knowledge-ability of farmers that should
not be underestimated.

1.1. The Theme

Since the late 1960s, the world of agriculture is being guided towards so called agricultural
modernization which was initiated by high yielding varieties wheat invention in Mexico. The
success story of innovation in Mexico and the pilot project in India continued to grow, so
that it provided the confidence to the pioneers in disseminating their newly founded and
successful innovation through all over the world and became the base of world’s agricultural
development. In 1971 the Ford Foundations, Rockefeller Foundations, World Bank, Food
and Agriculture Organization, and several governmental organizations agreed to found the
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, which is the capstone
organization coordinating the funding of the Green Revolution research institutions (Leaf
1998).

Indonesia is one of the Third World Countries targeted by the Green Revolution. It started
after the coup of President Soekarno along with the massacre of millions of civilians who
were considered as communists by General Soeharto who then ruled the country for 32
years. In his era of the New Order, President Soeharto included food security in his
economic development policy. “As in other developing countries, the concerns about food
security during the 1980s and early 1990s, resulted in policies aimed at achieving self-
sufficiency in food crops, especially rice” (Thomas and Orden 2004 pp. 8).

The Green Revolution certainly had an impact on Indonesian agricultural production,

increasing it by applying ‘new tech’ materials (seeds, inputs, machineries) and knowledge
which as time goes, replaced the ‘old’ practices and materials, so it also became ‘new’
fundamentals of Indonesian agriculture up until today. In the latter half of the twentieth
century Indonesia added significant amounts of land, labour and other inputs to agriculture.
Cropland expanded by an average of 1.4% per year during 1961-2006 and was still growing
by more than 1% per year in the mid-2000s (MOA 2009). Growth in manufactured inputs
used in agriculture, such as fertilizer, machinery and animal feed, was rapid but started from
an almost negligible level. Fertilizer use grew by 11% per year during 1961-1980, when high
yielding, fertilizer responsive varieties of rice were widely adopted and the government
introduced subsidies for fertilizers and pesticides (Mundlak, Larson, and Butzer 2004).
Agricultural tractor capital grew rapidly from very low initial levels. In 1961 there were only
about 1,000 tractors in service (nearly all of them two-wheel walking tractors), but by the
mid-2000s there were over 100,000 two-wheel tractors and 5,000 four-wheel tractors in use
(BPS 2009).

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The Green Revolution packages were made affordable for farmers through subsidies and
easy credit financed by growing oil revenues was generally successful in raising production.
By the mid-1980s, national self-sufficiency was achieved, although not for long. “As a result
rice prices stabilized at affordable levels for consumer, and the combination of increased
production and subsidies resulted in comfortable incomes for farmers through the 1980s”
(Piggot et al. 1993 in MacRae 2011 pp. 72).

However, there are always two sides to the impact of innovations, including the Green
Revolution. At one side, the Green Revolution has been able to secure the Indonesian food
supply by increasing the yields of agricultural products, and improved some of Indonesian
farmers’ economy and the country’s economy in general. On the other hand, new materials
and practices which had been introduced by the Green Revolution created new problems
for the environment, health condition, and replaced many traditional and original practices
of farmers. Moreover, it also changed the way the farmers interact with their social, natural
and technological contexts. As the ‘modern’ farming requires capital to procure agricultural
inputs which means that only those who have certain amount of capital are able to continue
to grow and strive in the competition, leaving those with limited capital behind. Thus, the
Green Revolution also created a social gap which also hampers the agricultural society. “In
Indonesia, as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, the Green Revolution disproportionately
benefited wealthier rural residents, who used the new technologies to increase production
and shed traditional obligations to women and poorer neighbours, who were pushed onto
more marginal land or off the land entirely” (Welker 2012 pp. 392).

All those problems which came along with Green Revolution have generated reactions from
the agricultural and environmental societies all around the world. In Indonesia, the
environmental impact started to show up, it has attracted the government’s attention in
encouraging environmentally friendly agricultural practices “The Indonesian government
has also begun to embrace organic production, at least in theory. The Department of
Agriculture has begun researching and conducting field trials of organic methods and in
2009 the governor of Bali announced funding of Rp.8 billion to ‘raise awareness’ of organic
methods” (MacRae 2011 pp.76).

The Janus-faced modern agricultural practices brought by the Green Revolution projects
have created a contestation of ideas of the ‘ideal’ way of farming not only in the level of
experts, but also the farmers. I would like to explore more on the farmers’ perspectives of
what they consider as best way of farming and how and to what extent they exercise their
agency in coping with the current streams of agricultural development.

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1.2. Problem Statement – disputed modernization and unheeded local knowledge
Agricultural modernization has always been seen as the solution to the problems in
agriculture, which are mostly caused by the external ‘squeeze’ which ironically emerged as a
part of the modernization itself. Since agricultural modernization projects got implemented,
the development path of agriculture has been entrusted to the ‘experts’ outside the farming
domain, fostered the adoption of a new farming style i.e. a new ‘ideal’ way of farming.

It is observable that Indonesian agriculture is still experiencing the heritage of 32 years of

iron-hand, top-down government of the New Order era where all the instructions from
above should be applied regardless of the culture and locality where the agriculture is being
practiced. However, since the fall of the regime in the late 1990s, Indonesians are more
aware of freedom. Actors from government offices, NGOs, academicians, and farmers who
are concerned about the downsides of the current path of agricultural modernization
started to use their capacities to act and looking for alternative ways of developing
agriculture in their area according to their cultures and localities which is of course also
influenced by the interactions among themselves and their socio-economic and natural
environment.

The Green Revolution package has been so dominantly embedded in Indonesian agriculture,
that today there are only a few farmers left who are practicing alternative farming methods.
Through decades of top-down dissemination methods, ‘modern’ farming practices became a
fundamental pillar of agricultural practices in Indonesia, to the extent that it is now
considered ‘old’. Nonetheless, ‘new’ alternative ways of farming have started to proliferate
at the grass root level. The notion of ‘conventional farmers’ represents those who are
practicing ‘modern’ agricultural practices, while the notion of ‘alternative farmers’
represents those who are practicing alternative/organic farming.

Currently, in Bali there are emerging initiatives of farmers in deciding their own way of
farming. These alternative ideas not only arise due to external influences, but also from the
farmers’ intuition, experiences, experiments, and even beliefs and relation with ancestors.
Nevertheless, these ideas are often being ignored, considered as practice without a theory
or even ‘crazy’, while it might be the seed of endogenous development of their agriculture.
“There is, currently, a re-emergence of deterministic views that strongly emphasize the
impacts of general, ‘external’ pressures on agriculture, whilst neglecting the importance of
responses generated at the micro-level” (Ploeg 2012 pp. 427).

1.3. Research Questions and Objectives

The overall objective of this thesis is to see the emergence of different farming styles as a
socially constructed process. To see the dynamics of Balinese agriculture through times by
seeing through historical events, analysing the structures in which farming is embedded, to
see the actor’s perspectives towards their structures, and how the farmers react to their
settings with their strategies. Together, it shows how the settings brought dynamics to

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perspectives of farmers on agricultural modernization and how it leads to the emergence of
different farming styles and farmers’ strategies in Gianyar, Bali. In order to do this, I will
answer the general research question:

How does the contestation of agricultural modernization determine the heterogeneity of

farming styles in Balinese agricultural society?

This question will be answered by answering the following sub-research questions:

1) How was the room for manoeuvre for the contestation of agricultural modernization
created in the current Balinese settings?
2) How is agricultural modernization manifest itself in the lens of Balinese agriculture
actors?
3) What farming styles and farmer’s strategies have emerged or are emerging in this
contestation?

The first sub-question aims to explore the structure (markets, technology, and institutions)
of Balinese which creates dynamics in their agriculture, by creating opportunities and
hindrances for farmers (room for manoeuvre). The second sub-question aims to go into
actors’ lens, to see how different actors perceive agricultural modernization, and their
reasons. The third sub-question aims to explore different farming styles and strategies of
farmers who have different perspectives towards agricultural modernization. The answer of
each sub question will be described in chapter 3, 4, and 5 of this thesis.

1.4. Theoretical Framework

1.4.1. Macro-Micro Linkages Analysis
The framework of this thesis is adapted from the macro-micro-macro linkages analysis
which analyses different structural levels (micro and macro) and how they relate to certain
actors. First, it analyses the impact of the situation in the macro level (the structure) to the
micro level. Then it analyses how do actors in micro level processed and reacted to the
situation in where they conduct their farming activities. The last part, analyses how these
responses generated at micro level affected the macro situation. However, I only use macro-
micro linkages analysis to suit the objectives of the thesis. It combines two major concepts
in sociological studies: structure and agency, which also later in the thesis focuses on the
notion of styles of farming through the application of labour process analysis.

In order to characterize the exogenous and endogenous growth patterns of agriculture, van
der Ploeg (1994) emphasized on including the variable mechanisms through which farming
is linked to market and technology into the analysis. He argued that farming style research is
one of the most promising methods to be used in unravelling the complexity of agriculture,
“it allows us to conceptualize as social constructions the specific ways in which the labour
process in farming is organized (that is how the process of production is organized as well as
how the farm develops through time). It is through a detailed analysis of the heterogeneity

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in agriculture, especially in marginal areas, that patterns of endogenous growth may be
discerned and analysed” (Ploeg and Long 1994 pp. 6).

The structural analysis of agrarian change, which focuses on processes (such as market
incorporation, commoditization, institutionalization and externalization) is applied in order
to analyse the settings in which practices of agriculture are being carried out. This structural
analysis, however, does not see farming as a practice which is fully determined by markets
and technologies. It focuses on how specific interrelations are established between farm
enterprises and communities, on the one hand, and markets, market agencies and the
processes of technology development and transfer on the other; the question of how these
relationships, once established, affect and remould the farm practices concerned (including
the underlying strategies); and finally, structural analysis studies how the relationships
involved might be changed over time (Hebinck and Ploeg 1997).

However, in order to grasp how the farmers process and exercise their agency in
determining what they think as ‘ideal’ way of farming, the structural analysis alone will not
be sufficient. As Giddens stated, structures are constituted by human agency and are the
very medium of this constitution (Giddens 1976). The actor-oriented approach, then,
develops a theory of agency based on the capacity of actors to process and act on one
another’s experiences in differentiated ways, in accordance with their competing priorities,
purposes and circumstances (Long 2001). “It aims to understand farmers, their agricultural
practices and relationships ‘within the context in which they live’” (Rhoades 1984 pp. 40-
41). In this context, “the actor-oriented methodology, as elaborated by Long, has proved
highly useful in getting to grips with the specificities of agricultural practices” (Hebinck and
Ploeg 1997 pp. 204). “An important contribution from the actor-oriented perspective
consists in the notion of markets and technology as entailing specific room for manoeuvre,
which is actively created by the actors involved through processes of negotiation and
redesigning” (Ibid 1997).

The third analysis that is used in this thesis is the labour process approach. It reveals “how
culture and economic, institutional and technological developments, as mediated by cultural
repertoires, are materializing in specific practices. Labour process analysis focuses on the
farmer as actor, on farming as a social construction and on the relationships in which
farmers’ work and life are embedded” (Hebinck and Ploeg 1997 pp.206).

These three strands of theories of agrarian change and agricultural development are
summarised in the notion of styles of farming. “A style of farming is the complex but
integrated set of notions, norms, knowledge elements, experiences, etc., held by a group of
farmers in a specific region, that describes the way farming praxis should be carried out”
(Hofstee 1985 in Ploeg and Long 1994). According to Hebinck and Ploeg (1997) a style of
farming consists of three interrelated and mutually dependent levels. These levels are:
“First, a specific cultural repertoire composed of shared experiences, knowledge, insight,
interests, prospects and interpretations of the context in which farmers operate; second, a

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style of farming is an integrated set of practices and artefacts; third, a style of farming
comprises a specific ordering of the interrelationships between the farming unit, on the one
hand, and markets, technology and institutions on the other” (Hebinck and Ploeg 1997 pp.
206).

To study the social relation of production, the anthropological perspective is introduced. In

this phase, “the structural analysis plays a role in studying the social relations of production
moulded and reproduced by the economic and institutional environment. The labour
process approach comes in when production and reproduction at the level of the farm
enterprise are analysed”(Hebinck and Ploeg 1997 pp. 208).

Highly variable in time and place

Ecology Natural resources
Farming style
1

Domain of family, Farm enterprise

Culture community, Farming style
(on field)
networks 2

Domain of Farming style

Policy markets and n
Regimes technology,
Farmer
institutions
strategies

Social relations of Farm labour

production

Figure 1: Macro-micro linkages in farming style (Hebinck and Ploeg 1997)

1.4.2. Farming Logics and Farmers Strategies

In the literature, these two agricultural development paths are characterised by the logics of
farmers in organizing their farms into two categories based on van der Ploeg (2008). These
farming logics are: the entrepreneur (Figure 2) which covers the farmers who are in favour
of agricultural modernization, focusing their farming goal in income generation by
integrating themselves into markets. These farmers tend to have a competitive behaviour
because they see the future as scarce commodity, only the best farmers will triumph. In
order to be one, they should be the first one to adopt and apply external technologies
(expert designed). Utilizing these technologies (i.e. farm intensification) adds more costs to
the farming activity; and in order to pay the expenses, entrepreneurs mostly pursue scale
enlargement as a solution. Lastly, they perceived that they should be able to constantly
adapt to the external indicators (e.g. markets and policies).

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 Figure 3: the logic of the entrepreneur (van der Ploeg 2008)

On the other hand, there is the logic of peasant farmers or craftsmanship (Figure 3) which
covers the farmers who seek more than just income as their goal of farming, taking the
environmental and cultural aspects into account in their farming practices. Their solution to
increase their profit lies in the resource management in order to cut farming expenses. They
focus on developing their ability to farm sustainably by relying on local knowledge and
responding to internal indicators (e.g. their farm condition or family). In this case, this logic
represents the farmers who are not in favour of modern agricultural practices.

Figure 2: the logic of the peasant (van der Ploeg 2008)

In reacting to the settings, farmers came up with their own strategies in order to find a style
of farming which gives most values to them; values in the sense of not only giving economic
benefits, but also justifying their practice based on their visions of how the farm state was in
the past, how it is in the present, and how it should be in the future based on their
rationalities. These visions then became the motivation of goals, the farm projects of the
farmers which filled with hopes, innovations, and networks.

In the literature, there are typologies that can help to identify these strategies based on the
multi-functionality of farm enterprise as a response to the income squeeze that is
hampering the agricultural sector, especially farmers. These rural development strategies
are: broadening, deepening, and regrounding agriculture (figure 4). The farm enterprise
entails three sides or aspects: 1) the classical agricultural face, the one related to the
production of commodities; 2) the rural side, which forms part of a local and regional
economy and culture; and 3) the mobilization and use of resources (Ploeg and Roep 2003).

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 CONVENTIONAL
AGRICULTURE
Mobilization of Resources

REGROUNDING
New forms of cost reduction
Off-farm income
Figure 4: the structure of rural development at farm enterprise level (Ploeg and Roep 2003)

The relations of three aspects in rural development are then reproduced and transformed
as follow:

1) The agricultural side is deepened (transformed, expanded and/or relinked to other

players and agencies in order to deliver products that entail more value added per unit
precisely because they fit better with the demands in society at large (Marsden et al
2000; Renting et al, 2002 in Ploeg and Roep 2003 pp. 6).

2) The rural side of the farm enterprise might be reorganized through the process of
broadening. “We refer here to agrotourism, to the management of nature and landscape
(Baldock and Baeufoy 1993; Renting and Van der Ploeg 2000), to the development of
new on-farm activities and to diversification (as for example the production of energy;
Knickel 2000)” (Ploeg and Roep 2003 pp. 7).

3) The last side would be the mobilization and use of resources. The farm enterprise is
grounded in a new or different set of resources and/or involved in new patterns of
resource use. Regrounding is represented in two specific fields of activity: pluri-activity
and farming economically. “Through pluri-activity (Bryden et al 1992; Fuller and Brun
1991) the farm enterprise is partly built on off-farm income. Farming economically is a
strategy resulting in what is internationally referred to as low external input agriculture”
(Van der Ploeg 2000; Reijntjes et al 1992; Pretty 1998 in Ploeg and Roep 2003 pp. 7-8).

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1.5. Research Methods
The research is a case study which allows a flexible response to social processes evoked by
the events analysed. I chose an ethnographic approach because this study provides a
comprehensive understanding of community perceptions and what is happening in the
community, and it also allows me to identify experiences embedded in local practices,
culture and society.

This ethnographic study consists of observations, participant observations and interviews

with the actors. It is really important to get information on farmers’ motives, knowledge and
relationships but also on the socio-material settings in which new farming styles emerged or
are emerging. I also gathered information about demography, historical framework, and see
the connection with the actual condition. Thus, documents and artefacts analysis will be
used as well.

Observations

Before conducting interviews, I observed the situation in the study site. This process helped
me to get an overview which allows me to problematize the settings.

Participant Observations

To go further in the understanding of practices, I did participant observation in some of the

farmers and NGO activities. It is important to see and listen to related actors in their
context, and to experience as closely as possible their daily work reality where knowledge
and practices are generated. And also by participating in their activities can help me to
blend with them, gaining more trust and connection which will help me in collection
information.

Interviews

I also did interviews in order to get the perspectives and the story of the actors. I
interviewed not only farmers, but also government officers, NGOs, and scientists that
collaborate directly with these farmers.

Document and Artefacts analysis

As the focus of this research is the socio-material settings in which farming style are
produced, document and artefact analysis helped as well. Thus, objects and documents
related to these practices (such as personal notes, farming tools, newspapers, and articles)
are relevant sources of information to develop my thesis.

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1.6. Country Information
1.5.1. Indonesia
Located in between two continents Asia and Australia, two major oceans of Indian and
Pacific, and right under the equatorial line, Indonesia is gifted with the richness of natural
resources. The country is 1,904,569 km2 covering 13,466 islands, which makes Indonesia the
largest archipelago country in the world. By the lands, Indonesia borders with Malaysia in
Kalimantan, Papua New Guinea in Papua, and Timor Leste. Other neighbouring countries are
Singapore, The Philippines, and Australia. Indonesia is populated by approximately 237.6
million citizens spread among 34 provinces, with more than 50% of its population
concentrated in Java and Bali (BPS, 2013).

The characteristics of Indonesia shaped it

into an agrarian country where most of its
population is highly dependent on its
agricultural sector for their livelihood,
especially in rural areas. In 2010 the
agricultural sector contributed 15.3% of the
total GNP and employed around 42 million
people all across the country. However if
we look at the trend in past years, it shows
Figure 5: map of Indonesia
that less and less people are willing to work
in the agricultural sector each year.

Indonesian agriculture has been through several events in the process of its development.
An important shift came with the colonial era, where Indonesian agriculture was forced to
serve the needs of the West, by planting export commodities. “The growth in arable area
which occurred in colonial Indonesia was not just for food crops cultivation. There was also
a very rapid growth in land area under production of commodities such as rubber, copra,
and coffee which were sold on international markets” (Booth 1989 pp. 1237). This process
lasted for more than three centuries, until the country claimed its independency in 1945.
However, the damage caused during the colonial time was so intense, that it left Indonesia
to start with serious crises in many sectors such as economy, politic, social, and food
security.

After its independence in 1945, under the leadership of its first president Soekarno,
Indonesia focused on rebuilding its national integrity. “Jennifer Lindsay (2011a:15) rightly
remarks that in the early 1950s the Indonesian nation was primarily a cultural project.
Moreover, she observes that ‘to be an Indonesian was to be modern’. National Identity and
modernity were therefore inextricable intertwined” (Nordholt 2011 pp. 388). Soekarno
focused on the revitalization of Indonesians nationalism to ‘nationalize’ the country by many

11
ways such as mobilizing the population through transmigrations, and nationalizing foreign
companies.

However, during the 1945-60s, due to its recent birth as an independent nation, Indonesia
could not make any remarkable achievements especially in its agriculture. “In spite of
government effort not just on expanding irrigation, but also on research and extension
services, there was no breakthrough in food crops yields per harvested hectare until 1960s”
(Boomgaard 1986, in Booth 1989 pp. 1237).

Then Indonesian agricultural development entered the next stage in the beginning of the
New Order era (1966). As one of the strategies in rebalancing the stability of politic and
economy, Indonesia started to be dependent on foreign countries in terms of technology,
investments, and education which indirectly affected the whole country’s policies and
developmental path. In order to solve one of the important issues at that time, famine,
Indonesia needed to increase its agriculture productivity by adopting the Green Revolution
packages.

In Indonesia, the Green Revolution is known as a program called Bimas (Bimbingan Massal –
Mass Guidance). It certainly has affected the Indonesian agriculture production, increasing it
by applying ‘new tech’ including knowledge and materials (seeds, inputs, machineries)
which as time goes, replaced the old practices and became the fundamentals of Indonesian
agriculture development up until today. During the Green Revolution, Indonesia expanded
its farm lands and also increased labour and other inputs to its agriculture. Cropland
expanded by an average of 1.4% per year during 1961-2006 and was still growing by more
than 1% per year in the mid-2000s, all of the expansion occurred outside the densely
populated island of Java, especially on Kalimantan, Sumatra and Sulawesi (van der Eng 1996;
MOA 2009).

Growth in manufactured inputs used in agriculture, such as fertilizer, machinery and animal
feed, was rapid but started from an almost negligible level. Fertilizer use grew by 11% per
year during 1961-1980, when high yielding, fertilizer responsive varieties of rice were widely
adopted and the government introduced subsidies for fertilizers and pesticides (Mundlak et.
al. 2004). Agricultural tractor capital grew rapidly from very low initial levels. In 1961 there
were only about 1,000 tractors in service (nearly all of them two-wheel walking tractors),
but by the mid-2000s there were over 100,000 two-wheel tractors and 5,000 four-wheel
tractors in use (BPS 1993-2007).

The Bimas program has succeeded in increasing Indonesia’s agriculture production. The
country achieved significant achievement in agriculture during the 1970s and 1980s through
the diffusion of high-yielding varieties of food crops (Fuglie, K.O. 2004). However, in the late
1980s where the economic climate was harsh, the government can no longer afford to
continue a policy of excessive subsidies to agriculture. “Thus, according to the pessimists,
the inevitable result of reduced subsidies will be reduced rates of agricultural growth, which

12
combined with the decline in employment opportunities in other sectors of the economy
will have a severe impact on living standards in rural areas” (Booth 1989 pp. 1242). This
situation affected agricultural sector until the present day. Farmers who are already more
dependent to markets and technology could not get full subsidies anymore and have to
start re-forming their business plan by adding inputs’ costs.

Since the fall of New Order (1998/9), Indonesians started to be more aware of freedom.
Critical farmers who had doubts about the Bimas program but were silenced during the
Soeharto regime, started to develop their own way of agriculture, and thus more actors got
involved in shaping the dynamics of agriculture in Indonesia. As the result, since the past
few years agriculture modernisation has been brought into a contestation in many ways.
Some actors in different areas of Indonesia started to emerge with new ideas on how
farming should be carried on in order to yield more, by keep applying the chemicals and
machineries, go back to nature, or a combination of both.

1.5.2. Bali
1Bali is one of the islands in Indonesia
which has unique characteristics
Gianyar
compared to other islands due to its
worldwide popularity as a tourist
destination. It is 5,636 km2 divided into
8 regencies, 1 capital, 55 districts and
701 villages and populated with
3,890,000 citizens. Around 85% of the
population are practicing Balinese
Hindus (a type of Hinduism which has
merged with local belief, and brought to Source: Petatematikindo.wordpress.com
Bali by the Javanese) (BPS, 2013). Aside Figure 6: Administrative map of Bali
of being a tourist spot, Bali is also
internationally famous for its agricultural practices, especially in rice farming with the
presence of Subak, a non-state institution consists of a group of people (mostly farmers)
who rules the irrigation system1. Although tourism plays a big role in the society and
development, agriculture still is the main occupation for Balinese. There are 408,233
farming households in Bali with 63.58% of them are small farmers, those who own less than
0.5 hectare of land (BPS, 2013). 218,591 households plant mainly food crops such as paddy,
cassava, maize, potato, and sweet cassava. The average income for farmers is 2.97 million
rupiah per household per month. This income includes the average off-farm labour income
(when they work in someone else’s farm) which is 1.03 million a month. The other source of
income would be remittance with the average income of 0.4 million rupiah a household a
year (BPS, 2013).

1
More about subak in the later chapter of the thesis

13
I conducted my fieldwork in Gianyar, one of the Regencies in Bali which has the second
largest agricultural areas. It has 469,777 population spread in 39,794 Km 2 of agricultural
land and 9,550 Km2 of non-agricultural land (BPS, 2010). The unique characteristic of
Gianyar compared to other regencies in Bali is the balanced tourism-culture-agriculture
development which plays important roles in shaping its agriculture. Unlike its neighbouring
regency Badung which is mostly transformed into touristic places such as Kuta and
Seminyak, Gianyar still has its cultural centre such as Ubud which, though touristic, still has a
strong tradition and culture. This condition allows more dynamics in Gianyar’s agriculture,
thus I found it interesting and decided to do my study in this area.

1.7. Structure of the Thesis

The thesis consists of six chapters divided into two introductory chapters, three result
chapters, and one conclusion chapter. In first chapter, introduction to thesis development is
provided along with the construction of problem statement, research questions, theoretical
framework, research methods, and the structure of this thesis.

The second chapter provides information about the history of agriculture development in
Bali. This chapter elaborates the historical events which shaped the current settings.
Information of agricultural development affected by political events i.e. pre-GR and during
the ‘New Order’ era is described. This chapter is relevant in explaining the historical events
which gave lasting influences towards the farmers’ way of thinking and also how the
structure works in Balinese agriculture.

The third chapter describes the settings of Balinese agriculture in relation with market,
technology, and institutions in the post-reformation era. In this chapter, the agriculture
related institutions which play roles in the dynamics of Balinese agriculture are described.
This chapter is important because it explains how the roles of institutions in posing
opportunities and hindrances (room for manoeuvre) in terms of markets and technology;
that both enables and restricts farmers in practicing their farming style.

The fourth chapter provides the actors’ perspectives towards current and future plan for
agriculture development from the actors representing each group. How each actor sees the
way on how the agriculture is moving through times, what they considered as problems that
need to be solved, and what would be their next step in paving the future agriculture path.
In this chapter, the contestation of the agricultural modernization as solutions among the
actors is described. This chapter is crucial in understanding the reasons of farmers in
choosing their ‘ideal’ way of farming as reactions to the structure where farming activities
occur.

The fifth chapter provides the information about different farming styles and the strategies
of farmers that I came across during fieldwork. Different practices of different farmers who
have different perspectives and related to different network in the institutional structure
will be described. This chapter contributes the information about the manifestation of

14
farmers' ideal farming based on their reasoning; and which structures that are enabling and
restricting them to choose otherwise.

The sixth chapter covers the discussion and conclusions of the thesis. Here I would like to
reflect my findings and the answers to my research questions with the theories and insights
that I encountered in some related literatures. The conclusion also provides personal
reflection and suggestions for future research.

15
CHAPTER II: THE TRAJECTORY OF BALINESE AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT IN BALI

Bali is one of many Indonesian islands which of course, was also affected by the Green
Revolution. Agricultural modernization started in Bali (and other areas in Indonesia) through
the Bimas program in late 1960s, which has certainly affected various aspects of Balinese
rural life. As described in the introduction, agricultural modernization has its negative and
positive impacts toward Balinese agriculture. These impacts received different reactions
from the actors, especially after the decentralization in early 2000 when reactions were
starting to come into the surface.

These different perspectives, influenced by the settings, have brought farmers to a space
where they contested the agricultural modernization ideas which leads them to certain
ways of farming. Before going to their perspectives of the ‘ideal’ way of farming, first it is
important to see the background of agricultural modernization in Balinese context by going
through the history of agricultural modernization in Bali.

This chapter provides general information about agriculture development in Bali. It

elaborates the historical events which shaped the current settings. Information of the
condition of Balinese agriculture before the Green Revolution, and its agricultural
development affected by political events during the ‘New Order’ era when the Green
Revolution got disseminated is described. This information is important not only to see how
the structures of Balinese agriculture evolved through times, but also it will contribute in
understanding why actors have a certain point of view towards agricultural modernization.

2.1. Pre Green Revolution Utopia

“In the past, I felt far more secure. Money was not the goal, it was better in the past. Now
everything needs money, how can I feel peace? There is no peace, the economy now is weird,
our life pattern depends on the economy, materialistic, to follow the era, most of the people
are having difficulties, because we need to buy everything, even farming costs so much
money. In the past, it was really different, happy, secure, and peaceful.”2

The situation in Bali before the green revolution especially related to its agriculture sounds
very romantic so that some of the Balinese are longing to go back to that ‘ideal past’ world.
A time where the sense of community was still very strong and people were working
together with nature in practicing their agriculture, using their local knowledge to invent
technologies and methods that fit them best in their localities, starting from input
procurement to post-harvest handling. Here I would like to illustrate this case in their old
practice of rice farming.

Prior to the Green Revolution, the farmers used to plant padi Bali a variety of red rice
originating from the island, which has a slower growth rate (approximately 6-7 months)

2
Wayan (72, a farmer and parking man), interviews on 31-12-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali.

16
compared to the new hybrid varieties (approximately 3-4 months). According to MacRae,
this practice only lasted until the 1950s with the assumption that its disappearance might be
caused by the combination of increased demand and improved irrigation “Prior to 1950
farmers grew local traditional rice during the rainy season, followed by a crop rotation (with
palawija – horticulture), usually soya beans, in the dry season. Around 1950, the rotation
crop was replaced by a second crop of rice” (MacRae 2011 pp. 72-73). While according to
one of known farmers in Gianyar, Sunarka3, field experimenting by the farmers was already
present at that time and farmers in his village managed to crossbreed the traditional rice
varieties so that it had a faster growth rate, therefore it became possible to plant it twice a
year. This means that even in their ‘traditional’ times, Balinese farmers had already realized
that there was a need to improve productivity, and they were able to do field experiments
in order to find a better variety.

In the traditional Balinese farming practice, the idea of zero waste was already present. An
example for this can be seen in the way that they utilized the by-products of paddy. From
paddy plant, farmers were used to let the stem of paddy withering on the field as the main
materials for composting; and they used the grain skin as the fuel to smoke the grain in the
rainy season in order to dry it; then they used the ashes back on the field to be mixed with
other materials such as leaves they gathered from their yards, the muds they gathered
when they cleaned the irrigation channel, house waste (since there were no plastics or any
other synthetic materials), and manure which were then turned into compost; they also
used the small parts of the grains from the milling process as ingredients to make food (e.g.
porridge) or as animal feed.

Traditional Balinese farming practices emphasized the importance of maintaining the soil
fertility in order to reach optimum production. That is why the old practices took a long time
(approximately 2 months) to prepare the land before planting. Sunarka mentioned at least 7
steps: “first we plough it; then let it until the weeds grew; then plough it again to mix the
weeds with the soil; wait until its flat; then plough it with big fork; then we let it until the
soil looks like porridge; then we flatten the land… when its full of pores, then it means that
the soil contains good aeration, and is ready.”4 The soil fertility was not only maintained by
the land preparation, but also the multi-crop planting which also affected the balance of the
ecosystem of the field; and also the rules of planting different crop in one year (e.g.
horticulture after rice), allowed the soil regenerate and not to be saturated.

After the land preparation, there were not that many activities anymore until harvesting
since there was no fertilizing during the growing period, nor pest control activities. The
farmers let the nature do its work without any human intervention for pest management.
“For pest control, in the past, we followed the planting schedule which has been created by
our ancestors, in one year there were only 2 planting seasons: December-January and July-

3
Sunarka (53, an extension agent and farmer), interviews on 19-11-2013 in Buahan Kaja village, Gianyar, Bali.
4
Ibid, 19-11-2013

17
August. This planting schedule brought balance to the ecosystem, since every time we
planted certain crops in rainy or dry season, then it attracted different animals, so there was
no overpopulation of certain animals. Moreover, we never considered the pests as pest, and
we believed that nature has its own way of control, so we didn’t do any pest control activity
at that time… there were some animals of course, like grasshopper, smelly bugs, mouse, but
they were not considered as bad things in our field… Look, grasshoppers, that’s a pest, and
there were snails, but it’s good because the snails eat bug’s eggs. Spiders, they also eat the
bugs, the snakes eat the rats and frogs, the frogs eat bugs too. You can see the food chain
was working very well and balanced, so the nature is actually has its own mechanism to
balance the population of creatures here, so we don’t consider them as pests… they are just
like us, part of the nature, they will take what they need, but that’s it, they won’t bother us
or our yield… and beside that we also have some plants that repels certain animals such as
areca nut tree.”5

The other was breeding ducks, which was allowed only in a certain period of time after the
harvesting period. This practice of feeding ducks in the rice field was not only useful as a
way to feed the animal, but also contributes to the farmer group, land preparation and pest
control. “After harvest, the ducks are allowed to be fed in the field, and also one period
before planting. Their feet act like a small tractor, they will eat some animals there, and of
course they also put manure in the rice field. The owner of the ducks has to contribute one
egg per duck to the farmer group for every season. There was a rule from the subak that
states this activity can only be done after harvest and before land preparation. If the ducks
owner breaks the rule (feeding his ducks in the field not on the time), then he will be fined
100-300 Rupiah per duck, depends on how big it is. Then 30% of the fine will be given to the
land owner, and 70% to the farmer group’s savings.”6

The other practice that has changed

was harvesting. Before the Green
Revolution, farmers used to use a
tiny harvesting tool called ani-ani, as
very small tool designed to cut only
certain part of the plant (the tip of
the stem which has grains). The
harvesting method is based on their
Source: oiblenyon.blogspot.com
belief that they should not hurt the
Figure 7: Ani-ani
plant while they are harvesting the
yield, otherwise it would be considered as an offence to Dewi Sri, the goddess of fertility.
According to Sunarka, this harvesting method actually has positive implications to their
farming system. Firstly, it maintains the balance of ecosystem since most insects and other
animals which use the plant as their habitat kept their natural cycle, since it allows the rest
5
Ibid, 19-11-2013
6
Ibid, 19-11-2013

18
of the plants to wither naturally; and secondly, the withered body of the plants then
became materials of compost.

After harvesting, the grains got dried by using the sunlight

(in dry season) or smoked (mostly in rainy season) and
then got stored in the rice storage room. In order to
separate the grains from the stem, the farmers just
waited till they were fragile enough so that the grains will
fell off the stem naturally. This also has something to do
with their beliefs, because it is also considered offensive
(towards the goddess) to beat the grains before its ready.
According to Sunarka, this practice can also be related to
the food security because they had to wait until the grains
are ready to be ‘milled’ (in their traditional way) so that
they had to store the yields for some time and most of the
times they consumed the yields from the previous
harvest. “Because of this, we had to build storage and
started to store our rice. And with the elders’ suggestions
Figure 8: Traditional rice storage
to never consume all the yields we have, we always have
rice in our storage.”7

That is why the issue of food security, which was one of the main issues that was supposed
to be tackled by agricultural modernization projects, was unexpectedly not present at that
time. According to the farmers’ story, food security has already been thought by the
ancestors through the old practices. “At that time, there were still many animals in the field:
eels, frogs, snails, grasshoppers, and many more… that’s why when people went to the field,
they weren’t just harvesting the rice, but also the animals that were edible as source of
proteins… so at that time rice field provides almost everything we need”8. Kartini, an
academician and the founder of Bali Organic Association, confirmed the situation by her
story “Even though we were poor in monetary terms, I thought we were very rich; during
my childhood we had fruit and vegetables growing, we had honey and honeycomb. If we
wanted meat we would slaughter a chicken or a pig or even a cow. That’s what we ate, and
when I started school I already had my own business breeding ducks and selling the eggs”9.

Multi crops planting method that was being practiced at that time, was also related to food
diversification “it means that our ancestors had already thought about food security by
diversification, every farmer had dry lands to plants fruits, vegetables, and other crops.
Moreover, each house also had livestock”10. Balinese food security was not only supported
by their agricultural practice but also in their consuming behaviour. “We never had food
7
Ibid, 11-19-2013
8
Nyoman (65), Kadek (69) and other farmers interview on 11-23-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
9
Ni Luh Kartini (Bali Organic Association), interview on 11-12-2013 in Udayana University, Denpasar, Bali
10
Sunarka, interview on 11-19-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali

19
shortage, because in our tradition, our eating pattern, we did not eat only one source of
carbohydrate, we only ate ‘only rice’ at certain events such as religious ceremonies or other
special events. Other than those times, we always mixed the rice with other sources of
carbs, such as cassava, taro, or maize. It has been like that since our ancestors, our food was
diversified, and there were even times
where our storages were overfilled, so we
had to sell or trade the rice. However, our
fathers told us not to ever totally empty our
storage because we will never know what
will happen in the future. That is why until
now I still have stocks of rice harvested in
1921, 1930, 1940, 1950, and 1960 and they
are all still edible. After that it’s not possible
anymore to store the rice that long because
Figure 9: Original padi bali rice, harvested in 1921
new varieties rot really fast, could not even (Sunarka)
11
stored for one year” .

Trading was already present, but the purpose was more to fulfil farmers’ necessities by
exchanging goods rather than making profits. “At that time, people were still trading not
with money, but exchanging their product, mostly rice with something else. But before they
are sure that there is enough rice for their own family, they would not dare to trade the rice.
If there is someone who’s in need, that person can just borrow the rice from his neighbour,
while he can wait for his own rice to be harvested, and pay it back later. In my village, it is
very normal to borrow rice from the neighbour, I still remember that”12.

Agriculture labour system in that period was still based on social relationships. Before the
Green Revolution, labour was more intense, especially in the harvesting period. However, at
that time people saw labour hiring as ‘sharing’ rather than ‘cost’. “People worked in other
people’s field, even if they had their own field, so the reason were more about working
together, then they share yields. Some people managed to get more lands, some don’t, and
number of people in one family is also different. I mean there were people who own small
land but have large family, so their yield sometimes were not enough to feed the whole
family, and people who have large lands but small family, or people who were having other
jobs than farmer, they need help to maintain their farm… it leads them to work together,
mutualism with yields sharing, depends on their agreement”13. By helping others to harvest
their farm, people got a share of the harvest based on how much they yield. This practice,
then, had somehow maintained the social security by providing food for everyone, so it
lessened the social gap and prevented civil unrest.

11
Sunarka, interview on 11-19-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali
12
Kadek, interview on 11-23-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
13
Nyoman, interview on 11-23-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

20
From the practice of rice farming alone, it can be seen that Balinese agricultural practices
before the Green Revolution already covered a wide array of their daily life from fulfilling
basic needs through agriculture (procurement of inputs, production, and consumption), to
the creation of a harmonious society without neglecting its relationship with nature. Back
then, men did not fulfil their needs by interrupting the nature, but by enhancing the original
mechanism of nature. Balinese had been practicing their traditional agriculture practices
which intertwined with their culture and nature for ages so that it became a repertoire
which shaped their praxis. This praxis however, did not survive on its own, but being
guarded by local civic organizations (such as subak) through their sets of rules and
regulations.

2.2. The Milestone

The situation in Bali started to change significantly when Indonesia claimed its
independence and the government started to get involved in governing Bali as part of
Indonesia through its policies. The states started to get involved in the society not only for
administrative matters, but also through programs and policies which were indirectly
affecting the roles of the institutions which act as the gate to reach the society. To
understand better the agricultural development path in Bali, we cannot ignore the history of
social political situations that influenced and shaped the current settings of Balinese society
and the way they behave towards agricultural modernization.

According to the story of the old farmers, during Soekarno’s presidency, there were some
policies which triggered conflicts among the Balinese farmers, especially regarding access to
land and socio-agricultural practices.14 One of the hottest issues was the new law of land
reform, regulating the size of lands that can be owned by private, which was issued in the
early 1960s. The regulation was set in the Undang-Undang no. 56 PRP Tahun 1960 Tentang
Penetapan Luas Tanah Pertanian (Constitution No. 56 PRP 1960, regarding The
Establishment of Agricultural Land Size - 29 December 1960) The law on land redistribution
allowed a maximum of five hectares per household on wet rice land (sawah) and six
hectares on dry land in the most densely populated areas (more than 400 persons per km 2),
with greater holdings allowed in less densely populated regions. Holdings in excess of these
limits were to be redistributed by the state, with priority given to the people who were
actually cultivating the plot in question (Robinson 1995).

The new laws created conflicts between land owners (elites) and landless citizens. If we see
it from the view of landless people, the land reform policy was a miracle that gave them
access to lands. However for the elites who used to have more than 20 hectares of lands, to
be cut down to just own 5 hectares of land for nothing; the laws had of course, triggered
resistances. During that period, there were two major political powers which were
struggling in defending their domination in the country; these parties are: PNI (Partai

14
This story is explained in more details by Geoffrey Robinson (1995) in his book The Dark Side of Paradise:
Political Violence in Bali

21
Nasionalis Indonesia – Indonesian Nationalist Party) which in Bali (as the other regions in
Indonesia), represented the interests of the right-winged elites; and PKI (Partai Komunis
Indonesia – Indonesian Communist Party) which represented the interests of commoners.
These struggles then reached its climax in 1965, in an event known as G/30S/PKI, when the
whole communists and their ideology got completely eradicated in the whole country.

The Dark Past. When Indonesia withdrew from the World Bank and the IMF in 1965, the
barriers to world trade were growing stronger and stronger. Weeks later, six top Army
officers were killed and it was claimed that the PKI-members were behind the killings. Then
General Soeharto took over, and together with his followers in the army, he led over the
eradication of millions of peasants, activists and intellectuals, thereby wiping out the PKI.
This event resides still in the mind of the witnesses, especially families of victims as G30SPKI
or the 65 incident. In the recent documentary film ‘The Act of Killing’, the gangsters Anwar
Congo and Adi Zulkadry demonstrated in detail and full of pride how they had ‘saved the
country from communists’ by killing them with iron wire, or crushing their necks under the
table. Besides the description of the history, they also justified their actions as saving the
country from communists. “We are the winners, so we make the history.” They did this by
producing discourses about communists and by showing a movie every year in the national
television where communists were slaughtering parents of innocent children (the movie of
G/30S/PKI which is banned after the fall of Soeharto) – the opposite of what truly happened
in 1965.

Until today this topic is still very sensitive in Bali that I found it hard to gather information
straight from the main witnesses. I tried to slip one or two questions about the 1965
incident to old farmers that must have witnessed that national incident, and all I got most of
the times were only stares to the floor, staggering voices, and avoidances. I could see that
they are holding intensely traumatizing memories in the back of their head that they don’t
want to recall or they were too afraid to give any opinions about it. However, some of the
respondents were willing to share the story of the tragedy in their point of view.

According to pak Sunarka, who was also a second witness, in Bali people used the situation
in order to eliminate whom they considered as enemies, even for personal reasons. “That
time was really chaotic and terrifying… every day we heard from the radio ‘eliminate PKI!
Communists are anti-god!’, this is Bali, religion is our foundation… and suddenly there were
rumours that if PKI wins the election, then they will destroy every temple and wipe out our
religion, we will not be allowed to pray, etc… of course, Balinese were angry… they didn’t
even need that many soldiers, just by spreading rumours then they already let Balinese
killed each other… It was so easy to get rid of a person at that time, in the neighbouring
village I heard that someone got killed by villagers because he was a PKI member, and later
they found out that someone else just accused him without proof, just because that guy

22
wanted the victim’s wife… not to mention the military, some people got taken during the
night, and I never see them again up until now…things were really crazy back then”15.

Termana, a member of Taman 65 (a group of family members of the victims who are doing
research to uncover the truth behind the 1965 incident) who is also a grandson of one of
the victims stated that according to their research, in Bali alone, between 80.000 and
200.000 people were killed (which is between 5% and 12.5% of the total Balinese population
at that time). Termana is the nephew of Agung Alit, a key-witness who has been brave
enough to talk in public as key informant in many related books and documentaries such as
40 Years of Silence and The Act of Killing. He told me that in the family, it was forbidden to
ask of their grandfather’s whereabouts, especially by the grandmother “because she was
traumatized, she always told us not to talk about grandpa, she always told our uncles that
grandpa died due to accident… but then they grew up and of course she could no longer
hide the truth that even she, doesn’t know where grandpa is, all she knows is that he got
taken during a night and that was the last time she saw him… she told us to never question
the government, and by looking what happened before, then its normal for her to cover
things from us, because of course she wants to protect the family… even now, she found out
that we built Taman 65 and my uncle Agung Alit started to show up and talk in public, she
becomes really sad, she’s still scared that it might happen to us”16.

According to him, his uncle witnessed when the people were literally slaughtered at the
beach so that the waves took care of the bodies right away, when the rivers were clogged
by corpses and the water turned red, when the market near their house used to be a mass
grave. I personally cannot imagine seeing such horrifying scenes in my surroundings, no
wonder most of my respondents were shaking and preferred to avoid the topic once I asked
them about the 1965 incident. The incident traumatized those who seen it, so it silenced
their freedom, their creativity, and made them submissive towards the government, which
is in this case, restraining their room for manoeuvre in any way that they consider as against
the government.

The impact of the incident to Balinese agriculture is not only in the mental state of farmers,
but also related to land grabbing. Sunarka explained to me what happened in his
neighbouring village, “the inheritance system in Bali is patrilineal, which means that if my
dad died, then the land will be divided to his sons once they reach certain age… at that time,
so many people gone missing, mostly fathers of young children… when it happened, the
ideal thing is that the closest male relatives of the fathers took care of the lands until the
children come to age… but what happened in the neighbouring village for example, some of
the people moved away since they are landless because their relatives were too greedy, and
at that time, the land certification was still unclear, so it was easy to just grab a plot of land

15
Sunarka, Interview on 11-26-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali.
16
Termana, Interview on 12-04-2013 in Denpasar, Bali.

23
from the victims and claim it”17. This story got confirmed by Termana and his brother, who
shared the same story from their uncle who had to go through internal family conflict in
order to reclaim his lands.

The incident of 1965 had left the society in turmoil, vulnerable and in need of a leader to
whom they can cling on to. Then Soeharto rose to power and governed the country and the
era of the New Order began. During his time, as one of the strategies in rebalancing the
stability of politic and economy, Indonesia started to be dependent on foreign countries in
terms of technology, investments, and education which indirectly affected the whole
country’s policies and developmental path. In order to solve one of the important issues at
that time, famine, Indonesia needed to increase its agriculture productivity by adopting the
Green Revolution packages.

2.3. The Transformation

Transformation of Balinese agriculture was started by the introduction of new technology in
1967 through the Bimas (Bimbingan Massal – Mass Guidance) programs which were
disseminated all over the country. The Bimas program was mainly being conducted through
extension agents, with the objective to improve the productivity of farms and the livelihood
of farmers through agricultural modernization. “The Bimas program aimed to develop the
conventional agriculture practices (intensification), the objectives and intentions of the
program were actually good. The government wanted to help the farmers to be able to run
their agri-business, so that farmers could start up their farming as a business and be
autonomous”18.

The first introduced technology was the chemical fertilizer (urea) with some trials which
lasted for about 4 planting seasons, started with low dosage to normal. At the first time the
dissemination of fertilizer was not going so well due to the farmers’ ‘fundamentalism’ which
made them reluctant towards it. “When it was introduced, the farmers were reluctant even
though the government was giving the chemicals for free. The farmers didn’t want to use it.
They just threw it away or put it under the banana and coconut trees, because they thought
that it is bad for the soil. No, they didn’t even dare to try it.”19 However, the reluctance got
diminished once they saw what the fertilizers did to the surrounding plants in the area
where they threw the fertilizer. “It was because in every place where they threw the
fertilizer, the plants have better growth and more yields, so people started to believe that
the fertilizer is actually good for the plant”20.

Nevertheless, the traditional variety of rice did not react that well to the newly applied
fertilizer “the plants were greener and have more leaves, but it did not affect the

17
Sunarka, Interview on 11-26-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali
18
Sunarka, interview on 11-19-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali
19
Ketut, Interview on 11-24-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
20
Ibid, 11-24-2013

24
productivity.”21 That was the time when the government introduced new varieties which are
more responsive to chemicals, and padi bali started to slowly got replaced by the new
variety called PB5. This dissemination was also not easy and caused controversy among the
farmers “When it started, it was so difficult, because they were still sticking to their beliefs
and traditions. Farmers were still cautious and they still didn’t trust the PB5... they always
thought that the PB5 is not good, because in their mind at that time, it doesn’t make any
sense to them... they think that the PB5 has a short growth cycle, produces more yield, so it
must be very bad for the soil… but then their perception changed when they saw the others
who planted PB5 got more yields and easier to harvest, they started to follow. It took 3
years before the new varieties were widely accepted in Bali. It was because the new
varieties have higher yields, highly responsive to the fertilizer”22.

The new variety had successfully boosted productivity, but the benefits did not last that long
as problems started to show up. “The new varieties somehow attract pests like we never
had before. Then they introduced the pesticides. From that on, our whole farming activities
changed”23. Since then, the farmers were introduced to pesticides which had hazardous
impacts towards the health and environment especially in the early years. However, even
though the farmers at that time realised and experienced these impacts on their health,
they could not do anything but getting medical treatments and continue using pesticides
because it was the only suggested solution to deal with pests.

The Bimas program also introduced agricultural machineries such as tractors and Rice
Milling Unit (RMU) which replaced human labour in Balinese agriculture. “Before the
introduction of new technologies, peak labor requirements during soil preparation,
weeding, transplanting and harvesting, were met by the use of hamlet-based communal
labor-sharing arrangements. Nowadays, many Balinese farming households resort to
outsourcing such work to paid labor depending on their financial capacities and household
labor availability”(Lorenzen & Lorenzen 2010 pp. 32).

To make the dissemination more efficient, the government created the farmers group. The
extension agents then mainly had contact with the group leaders who are then
disseminated new technologies to the farmers. The program also used mass media such as
radio television (siaran pedesaan – discussion session that was broadcasted live), television
(short films, kelompencapir – discussion and quiz show, and even traditional art show such
as puppet show – wayang) to spread the ideas that modern farming is a better way of
farming than the traditional one. Additionally, in the dissemination of the Green Revolution
package, the farmers were directly and indirectly forced to do what the government told
them to do. Ketut told me that in his area (Ubud) the extension agents came every week

21
Ibid, 11-24-2013
22
Ibid, 11-24-2013
23
Ibid, 11-24-2013

25
and did not stop until the farmers agreed to adopt the technology, and after what happened
in 1965, the farmers are mostly obedient towards the government.

Through its top-down dissemination process of the Bimas programs that lasted for 3
decades, the New Order regime transformed almost all elements in Balinese agricultural
practices and society. However, there are two sides in the impact of the Bimas programs. At
one side, the Bimas had been able to increase the yields of agricultural products and
brought efficiencies in agricultural practices through mechanizations. In the other hand,
new materials and practices which been brought by Green Revolution created new
problems in environment, health condition, and replaced many traditional and original
practices of farmers, and moreover, it also changed the way the farmers interact with their
social, natural and technological context.

2.4. Modern Complications

Unfortunately, the problems created by agricultural modernization can also be seen in the
current Balinese agriculture and its society. These symptoms were never been expected by
the farmers at the beginning of agricultural modernization “At first, farmers were happy
because everything went well. The government provided subsidies for the inputs (seeds,
fertilisers, pesticides), they even provided loans to those who weren’t able to buy the
inputs, our production increased. We started having more than we needed for our
consumption, so we started selling to other regions and make money. But then as time went
by, problems started showing up one by one, and it still keeps going on up till now. Look at
our soil, our water, our environment, we are losing our traditions, our old varieties and our
harmony with nature, look at our farmers who are busy competing, monopolizing and
‘killing’ each other, land grabbing, our war with nature which now we consider as our
enemy (pests), many of the farmers complained about their health because of their long-
term exposure to the chemicals… not to mention the occurrence of another actors
especially corporations in the chain, which always exploiting small farmers… and many other
problems”24.

One of the problems brought by agricultural modernization is the externalization of inputs

which made the farmers dependent on the market for inputs. “The problem is that in Bali,
maybe in all across Indonesia, the government provided subsidies for the inputs when they
introduced it up to some years after that. They distributed and said that ‘this is a program’
and the people say ‘if we don’t take this, we lose it’ (because they could get it for free or
very cheap). But as time goes, the subsidy got lower and lower so the price of the chemicals
keeps increasing”25. Farming which once was a self-sufficient and sustainable activity started
to be a profit generating activity since farmers need capitals to buy inputs. This situation
was worsened by the stagnation of productivity due to the soil saturation; and the reduced

24
Ni Luh Kartini (Bali Organic Association), interview on 11-12-2013 in Udayana University, Denpasar, Bali
25
Ibid, 11-12-2013

26
subsidy due to monetary crisis in the end of 1980s, which means that farmers had to spend
more money as input costs, while they could not improve their productivity.

Health related problems were also present in the beginning of chemicals introduction.
Sunarka who is also a government extension agent, told me that he remembers that, when
he had to introduce the pesticides in his village, many suffered health problems due to
improper practice. “Because at that time, people were not even able to read Bahasa
Indonesia, and the chemicals came with instructions written in English, even sometimes in
Japanese. How could we understand that?”26 During those years (1974-1979) he used to do
regular medical check-ups for farmers in his village due to the health complaints by farmers
such as fatigue, throwing up, headaches, etc. According to what he experienced, improper
usage of pesticides was the main cause of health issues experienced by farmers at that time.
Aside of that, in Buahan Kaja village according to their beliefs, they were not allowed to kill
living beings unless for consumption “So when the first time we applied pesticides, we saw
dead grasshoppers, frogs, and other animals which used to be edible at that time, and some
of us ate them and got poisoned”27.

According to the farmers, at that time the pesticides contained highly toxic substances
which are then banned in the early 1980s, and also the government suggested the farmers
to do spraying once every two weeks. This practice was not only causing health problem,
but also disturbing the balance of farms ecosystem since the pesticides killed not only one
specific pest, but also other animals. The hazardous impacts of pesticides were witnessed by
most of the farmers in Buahan Kaja village and they decided to stop using pesticides by the
end of 1980s. However, the farmers in other areas such as Ubud could not make the same
decision and are still applying pesticides until today, since at that time there were not that
many people who were dare enough to say no to government’s programs. Because, as
mentioned in the later section, Soeharto’s authoritarian government did not give any room
for Indonesian who has different ideas than the government. This top-down iron handed
way of governing and developing the country also of course happened in Bali for decades,
supressing the freedom and creativity of the farmers in managing their farms.

The other problem is the degradation of valuing local wisdom and ancestral knowledge
which has been effective in maintaining the balance between the society and nature for
ages. Slowly but sure, people are starting to be careless about environmental sustainability,
their main goal shifted to survive and develop by generating more profits through
agriculture and other activities, turning them into entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurial
behaviour made materials more valuable (commoditization) and created competitions
between farmers. This condition had also somehow influenced the room for manoeuvre of
farmers in a way that “if I don’t apply the same practices (e.g. plant the same varieties,
applying chemical fertilisers and pesticides) to my farm, then I will be left behind by others, I

26
Sunarka, Interview on 11-26-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali
27
Ibid, 11-26-2013

27
will not be able to produce enough to enter the market”28. The commoditization also applies
to labour by replacing the communal labour system, which was based on sharing with paid
labour, hence, widening the gap and creating barriers within the society.

At the same time when the Bimas program was implemented, tourism also started to be
prioritized in Bali development projects. This had, of course, also caused problems for
Balinese agriculture, starting from land transformation, labour shift and water scarcity
(further details in the next chapter of the thesis). Altogether, these modern complications
pose an external squeeze to Balinese agriculture and its society, in which most of the
farmers are still consciously or unconsciously applying the Green Revolution packages and
the others started to realise the not so benign side of it and started to look for some
alternatives. However, some critical farmers and activists realised these negative impacts,
during that time it was almost impossible to actively go against or questions the
government’s policies. Until the regime fall in 1998, when people got more aware of
freedom and starting to surface with their ideas, creating difference of perspectives of the
solution to the squeeze. The next chapter describes the settings and structure of Balinese
agriculture in the post-reformation era.

28
Nyoman, interview on 11-23-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

28
CHAPTER III: THE STRUCTURES THAT INFLUENCE BALINESE AGRICULTURE
This chapter provides general information about the settings in which Balinese practice their
agriculture in the post-reformation era. Agriculture practices are always influenced by its
surrounding settings, and this also applies in Bali. These settings include the culture of
Balinese, the state and non-state institutions, and tourism which together pose hindrances
and opportunities that shape the room for manoeuvre for farmers in pursuing their
agriculture practices. The settings have been determining Indonesian agriculture, including
the Balinese, in a top-down way, especially since the beginning of the New Order era.

This chapter aims to describe the dynamics of the structures from time to time and how
these structures create opportunities and hindrances that allow different styles of farming
to emerge. Firstly, this chapter describes historical perspective of Balinese culture which is
the foundation of Balinese society. Understanding Balinese culture is important due to its
strong influence to Balinese’s aspects of life. Secondly, this chapter then describes the
institutions that contribute to the forming of room for manoeuvre for the farmers. Lastly,
this chapter provides information about the impact of tourism on Balinese society. It is
important to see the interaction between these three settings in order to get an overview of
Balinese agricultural settings.

3.1. Post-Reformation Era

Through its top-down dissemination process of the Bimas programs that lasted for 3
decades, the New Order regime transformed almost all elements in Balinese agricultural
practices and society. “Indonesian farmers, including Balinese, are mostly over fifty years of
age and have spent most of their working lives under the top-down command regime of
Soeharto’s New Order” (MacRae 2011 pp. 71). By the end of the 1990s, most Indonesians
could no longer hold their disappointment of being mentally and physically suppressed or
sitting idly watching the corrupt government ruling over the country for 32 years. In 1998,
college students from all over Indonesia gathered in the heart of Indonesian government,
Jakarta. They led the largest demonstration (against the government) in the history of
Indonesia and brought down the New Order regime, and the reformation era began.

Being freed from the chains of dictatorship of the New Order government which ruled for
three decades, many representatives of local regions came up with their own ideas and
power agendas. The sudden emergence of various interests and ideas triggered conflicts
between the regions in Indonesia. Thus, the government decided to decentralise political
power, giving authority to local governments in managing their own area through their own
local policies, through the Constitution No. 22/1999 regarding the local government
(Undang-Undang Nomor 2 Tahun 1999 tentang Pemerintahan Daerah). “Decentralisation in
Indonesia had radical implications (Hull 1999), introducing considerable autonomy to very
small district-level units” (Pedersen 2007 pp. 197). “A policy of decentralisation and regional
autonomy further stimulated such local and regional political agendas” (Roth 2014 pp. 4).

29
This event was then, seen as an opportunity for local government to claim authority by
implementing rules and policies in managing their own resources and society based on their
interests, which were mostly concealed by discourses of local wisdom/tradition (adat).
“After decades of marginalization and dispossession by a predatory central state that did
not recognize customary claims to resources like land, water and forest, the political
changes of the late 1990s provided an opportunity for local political actors to reaffirm
customary claims, often related to regional or ‘indigenous’ identities” (Roth 2014 pp. 4).

This situation also happened in Bali, where the local government focused on the
revitalisation of Balinese identity. This defensive political gesture escalated especially after
the deadly incident of Bali bombing in 2002, which impacted not only the social aspects but
also economic aspects of Balinese life. “In Bali the issues of fundamentalist Islam, tourism,
land, resources and self-determination were areas of concern, brought to a dramatic head
by the Bali bombing and its aftermath” (Pedersen 2007 pp. 211). Few years after that
incident, the government of Bali initiated the revival of ‘unique’ local traditions through a
movement known as Ajeg Bali (stand firm Bali).

According to Reuter (2009) the major factors that contribute to the rise of Ajeg Bali
movement are: “a) the initial gradual and then wholesale touristification of local culture
over the last five decades; b) increasing economic dependence on a global market due to
reliance on cash crop agriculture, handicraft exports and tourism; c) massive environmental
degradation due to rapid economic development; d) the political decentralization of
Indonesia since 1998; e) the perceived security threat and economic losses after the
Jema’ah Islamiyah terrorist bomb attack on Bali in October 2002; f) fears of a possible
Islamisation of the Indonesian state; and, most prominent of all, g) concern over the
massive influx of Muslim labour migrants from the 1980s onwards” (Reuter 2009 pp. 864).

3.1.1. The Concept of THK (Tri Hita Karana)

One of the strategies in reaching the Ajeg Bali movement objectives is the revitalization of
the Tri Hita Karana (THK) concept, which originally surfaced in the beginning of New Order
era in the first Local Conference of Hindu-Bali Followers Association in Dwijendra University,
Denpasar (PHDP 1988). “It is mentioned as the basis of provincial regulations like those on
the environment, spatial planning, and tourism. It has also been mobilized to define the
Balinese irrigated landscape as ‘cultural heritage’ as well as to guide policies in the subak
domain” (Roth 2014 pp. 9). Thus, the propagation of THK has indirectly influenced the room
for manoeuvre of farmers.

The dominant religion of Balinese is Hindu-Bali (Balinese Hinduism), which is not the same
with Indian Hinduism. Balinese Hinduism is a mix between Hinduism which been brought by
Javanese during the kingdom era, with Balinese original belief which called Bali Aga which is
also known as religion of water. The contemporary Balinese Hinduism got labelled and
institutionalised in the beginning of New Order era where the government only recognised 5

30
religions (Islam, Protestant, Catholic, Buddhism, and Hinduism). Since then, the philosophy
for life in Bali is based on the concept of Tri Hita Karana, which literally means as the “three
causes of prosperity”. These three causes are:

Parhayangan, the concept of harmonious relation with God is not as simple as praying or
building a temple. Pak Nyoman, a pemangku, told me his perception about this “We see
God everywhere, some people told me that we don’t have God, we just pray to whatever
we came across, but that is not true… there is God in you, in me, in other people, in the
plants, animals, soil, air, everywhere, that is why we have to maintain good deeds towards
everything, do no harm, because if we do so, then we will harm God”29. Balinese sees God
not in the materials or the state of beings, but more in the connections between us and our
‘universe’ (anything that is not us, “I am a part of your universe, and you are a part of
mine”). Thus, parhayangan is the fundamental of the other two causes.

Pawongan, the concept of harmony among the people can be seen in how Balinese society
works. There are still scheduled voluntary works for example, to maintain public facilities,
cleaning the village, or even ceremony for the dead. This is not to say that THK concept is
the base of the voluntary works tradition, since the gotong royong (voluntary work) is
already part of Indonesian culture which was being enhanced and was increasingly used as a
national ideology during the New Order era; however, in Bali pawongan is propagated to be
the base of this customary. Pak Nyoman explained that “Balinese don’t like conflict, we
often have no complaints. If there is a problem, most of the times we just sit and discuss to
find the solution. A real Balinese will think 10 times before he intends to hurt someone,
because we have a very strong connection with our beliefs such as Karma and evil spirits”30.
Pawongan is not only for the living, but also goes beyond that, to the relation of the spirits
of the dead, the ancestors. That is why in Balinese belief there is Galungan, which is the
ceremony to welcome the spirits of heroes who visit our world for one week each year; and
Kuningan which is the ceremony to bid them farewell after they finished their visit. Pak
Sunarka explained another example “If you are not following the social rules and don’t have
good relationship with others, it will make your life harder. Who will help you when you are
dead? Who will help you with the ceremony? Nobody will help you? If your corpse can walk,
do the ceremony and burn itself, then it will be fine, but is it possible?”31 So the concept
works for multiple phases of life starting from welcoming new born babies, several events in
their process of growing up (there are some ceremonies for a person when he/she reaches
certain ages), the relationship during the lifetime, when people are dead (ngaben –
cremation ceremony), and even for spirits of ancestors. There are, of course, social
pressures anywhere (not only in Bali) as the consequences of any individual who doesn’t
maintain good relationship with the community in which (s)he lives in. However, pawongan
is propagated as fundamentals of ‘well-behaving’ so that people have a ‘label’ to justify their

29
Nyoman Rudita (67), interview on 12-03-2013 in Tampak Siring, Gianyar, Bali
30
Ibid, 12-03-2013
31
Sunarka, Interview on 11-19-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali

31
acts. In Bali, this social pressure is manifested in the presence of the banjar community
within a village which has rules that are based on THK concept.

Palemahan, the concept of harmony with nature can be seen in how Balinese sees God that
represents nature. For example in order to respect Dewi Sri, the fertility goddess, Balinese
farmers are still using the same old technique in growing and harvesting original rice variety
of Padi Bali which is considered as one of God’s creations. But not for hybrid varieties which
came along with the Green Revolution and are widely planted now, because they think the
hybrid varieties are manmade. Sunarka shared me his childhood story which is still being
told to the children in the present day “We cannot harvest Padi Bali by using big sickle to cut
the whole plants and mill the rice to separate the grains. Because God in her manifestation
as the protector, she will be angry if we damage most part of the plant while harvesting it,
and also if we ‘beat’ the plant to separate the grains… so it’s considered as disrespectful act
towards the Goddess”. This practice, similar to what Balinese used to do in pre-Green
Revolution era, is affecting the ecosystem of the farm and made farming more labour
intensive.

Balinese Hinduism seems so embedded in Balinese society that it’s not only influencing their
activities but also the way they react towards any external influences, from immigrants to
project implementations. Pak Nyoman told me his views about God “we see God
everywhere. We always want to give our best contributions as offerings to God in many
forms. We dance, paint, make sculptures, farm, anything can be presented as offerings to
God”32. These spiritual practices have been in Bali long time before the THK came to surface;
it is the source of flourishing artworks which used to be the manifestation of their
appreciation towards the Gods. However, in my opinion, this is also because of one of the
feats as Indonesians who are mostly religious, in the sense that we rarely question our
beliefs. This conservatism can be seen as a weakness and can be utilised by the government
to have more control over the citizen. In this case, the propagation of THK would be a
proper example.

Since the touristification of Bali, most of spiritual related activities such as ceremonies and
art performances have become commoditized as tourists’ attraction, and of course so have
paintings and sculptures, which are mostly valued as souvenirs. However, Pak Sunarka said
that “the original Bali religion is still present at this moment. It is called Bali Aga, the religion
of people in the area of Teganan and some other areas in North Bali. It is different from
what we are usually seeing here, because here, it has been influenced by mostly tourism
based motives, for publishing and promoting our tourism”33.

I am not trying to portray Balinese society as the society of saints, Bali is never as pure as it
sounds in any media and/or literature that came from the authors/producers who got

32
Nyoman Rudita (67), interview on 12-03-2013 in Tampak Siring, Gianyar, Bali
33
Sunarka, Interview on 11-19-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali

32
fascinated with the shining ‘uniqueness’ of Bali. However, with the emergence of the guided
discourse of THK (and Ajeg Bali movement), Balinese started to be more aware of their own
roots especially in relation with religious, social, and environmental issues; the sense of
‘being unique’ as a Balinese is being built and still growing, and enhanced by tourism-related
interests. This condition also influenced the agricultural society in Bali, for example, farmers
who are having negative perspectives towards modernization approaches often showed a
reasoning which is related to religious and environmental sustainability (more in a later
chapter of this thesis). This is, of course, also influenced by the fact that the concept of THK
has been put as the fundamental of subak’s agendas.

Aside of that, Balinese Hinduism also provide the market for the farmers through the
constant demands for some agricultural products that are used as offerings in many
ceremonies. However, this can also be seen as a hindrance, since farmers also have to
contribute to the ceremonies and have to use their own yields for the offerings so that it is
not economically favourable for the small farmers. Wayan, a small farmer who only has 20
acres of land explained that “It is very hard nowadays to make profit from farming with only
a small plot of land. Mostly I used some of the yields for my family consumption, and the
rest I used it as offerings, so then I have not much to sell”34.

The other important aspect of Balinese culture and religion which is related to its agriculture
are the social organizations, as in this context these can be seen as the way the society is
structured and works which influenced the decision making process in the community level,
even in individual level. The social organization of Bali is described in the following section.

3.2. Institutions
Bali has a unique societal order, governed by both state and non-state forms of
government. This phenomenon is covered in the concept of legal-institutional pluralism –
“the existence of more than one legal order or mechanism within one socio-political space,
based on different sources of ultimate validity and maintained by forms of organization
other than the state” (von Benda-Beckmann F. 2002 pp. 37-83 in Roth 2014 pp. 3). Bali was
originally formed as several kingdoms in one island. Some of these kingdoms are still
present and act as the non-official form of government for Balinese society, while the state
government also governs Bali as a part of Indonesia. Both customary and official
administrative institutions exist at several levels of the society. In the regency/district level
there are the kerajaan (kingdom) vs. kabupaten (regency) or kecamatan (district), in the
village level there are the desa adat/pakraman vs. kelurahan, and even in the field of
agriculture, the subak vs. dinas pertanian (agriculture service). I would like to make it clear
that in this context, I used the ‘vs.’ as a distinction mark, it is not to say that one side goes
against the other.

34
Wayan, Interview on 12-31-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

33
The presence of and interaction between non-state and state forms of governance has been
present since the ancient Balinese kingdom era (9th-10th century). At that time the desa
(village) acts like a ‘small republic’ with its own laws, then as the Majapahit (Kingdom from
Java) came with their Hindu-Java influence, desa started to get influenced by the power of
kingdoms (Liefrienck 1986/87 in Sudantra 2007). Since then, the desa began to have dual
functions: as local religious community, and socio-political community under the kingdom
with Perbakal as a representative which was chosen by the king. Then with the arrival of the
Dutch in the 1906/08, in order to strengthen their influence the Dutch built an
administrative government in the village level aside of the existing local village. These two
forms of village then known as desa adat (adat desa/customary village) and desa dinas
(gouvernementsdesa) which are still intact until today (Sudantra 2007).

Desa adat (customary village) was being marginalised during the New Order era under the
Constitution No. 5/1979 verse 1.a. which states that a desa should run under the law of the
Republic of Indonesia. In the beginning of the Reformation era, the constitution changed to
No. 22/1999 verse 1.o. which states that a desa is allowed to govern their population based
on their locality recognized by the Nation. In 2004, the law changed again to Constitution
No. 32/2004 which then got updated in 2005, the latest version of Constitution No. 8/2005
verse 1.12 which states that a desa is a group of ‘law-based community’ which has clear
geographical borders, and has the authority to govern their population based on their own
local tradition, which is recognized and respected in the system of Republic of Indonesia.

In Bali, this law combined with the propagation of THK led to the re-emergence of locality
based village form of desa pakraman/adat (non-state form of village) aside of the desa dinas
(state form of village). Desa pakraman runs the village based on the awig-awig (local village
norms) and has its own administrative settings which mostly based on the concept of THK.
Desa adat also acts as a space where the heads of banjar gather and discuss about matters
in the village level. Under the desa pakraman, there is banjar which consist of
approximately 100 households and have some various extra rules/norms depends on each
banjar in addition to those which came from the desa pakraman.

The most relevant social organization to the topic of this thesis is the subak, a famous part
of Balinese agriculture. “Due to Bali’s topography and the condition of its rivers, which are
generally steep, most farmers in Bali had limited access to water; sometimes they had to
build their own tunnels. To solve this problem, Balinese ancestors decided to make a
collective working group which has task to proportionally distribute the water to its
members”35. This organisation is called subak. It is important for me to provide information
about subak due to its inseparable role in Balinese agricultural and its society’s perspectives
towards agricultural modernization, as Roth stated that “In debates about these (threats to
Balinese agriculture) processes, and in attempts to make sense of and find policy solutions
for them, the subak plays a central role” (Roth 2014 pp. 5).

35
Sunarka, interview on 11-19-2013 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali

34
3.2.1. Subak (Local Non-State Social Organization)
What is a subak? Many scholars came up with various definition of subak, such as Geertz
(1980) who sees subak as rice fields that have the same source of water with many irrigation
channels. A local scholar Sutawan (1989) states that subak is the organization of wetland
farmers who have the same water source for their irrigation, owning one or more Bedugul
temple, and have the freedom of managing their own life and relations with outsiders.
While the Balinese Local Government, through its decree No. 2/1972 defines subak as the
‘Balinese law’-based community that has socio-agrarian-religious connections which are
historically built and keep on growing as the organization of land managers in certain area.

Aside from those definitions, the Balinese scholar I Gede Pitana (1993) added some
characteristics of subak which are:

- Subak is a farmers’ organisation who manage the irrigation water for their members. As
an organisation, subak has its own board and written and unwritten laws (awig-awig);
- Subak has one water source which is being used by all the members. The water source
can be in the form of a dam/dike, natural springs, groundwater, or a main irrigation
channel;
- Subak has areas of rice fields;
- Subak has autonomy;
- Subak has one or more bedugul (agriculture related temple)

These definitions somehow have similarities, and I found it relevant with what I came across
during my fieldwork. The farmers that I interviewed understood subak as a group of farmers
who manage the water distributions (irrigation) from one water source to the members,
which the size can vary from one village to more than one district, depends on the
availability/accessibility of the water source. Subak is not only involved in irrigation matters,
it also involved in socio-religious-agriculture practices such as the collective mobility of
materials (agricultural inputs and machineries) and knowledge (transfer/exchange of
information, ideas); and ceremonies. It acts as a hub among the members, or between the
members and outsiders (government and other subaks). Subak can also be a space where
the members try to find solutions to what they perceive as problems especially in
agriculture related social and religious matters.

Subak structure. Pak Sunarka, the head of subak in Buahan Kaja village told me that the
structure of organization is basically the same with any other organization. It is led by
pekaseh (the head of subak) which is assisted by one or more petajuh (assistants) which
usually divided into petengen (treasurer) and penyarikan (secretary). If the subak has many
members (usually more than 100) then there is a division of tempekan (sub-subaks) lead by
kelian tempekan (head of sub-subak).

In managing its members, subak has its own rules and norms called awig-awig which has to
be in line with the concept of Tri Hita Karana. This Awig-awig subak is formulated based on

35
the agreements of all members in their consultative meeting which is called sangkepan.
Awig-awig subak consists of a set of rules describing acceptable and punishable acts and
behaviours of its members, along with the punishments for those who break the rules
(Windia and Sudantra 2006).

Each subak member has freedom to make decisions regarding his own rice terraces, as long
as it doesn’t go against the awig-awig. The tempekan heads have the formal authority to
represent the tempekan members at subak level and the informal authority to negotiate
water with each other. The subak heads have the formal authority to represent their subak
at inter-subak meetings and in inter-subak activities. Although subaks have formal
arrangements concerning membership, territory, and members’ rights and duties, these
arrangements are embedded into social and ritual interactions between members and
between adjacent subaks (Sutawan 2000). Informally the subak heads have the authority to
negotiate water among each other in a beneficial way for the subak members. “Water
distribution, the main concern of the subak, is negotiated on a daily basis between farmers,
sub-subak heads, and subak heads. Social relationships, informal agreements, even disputes
are seen as an integral part of the daily working of the subak as a whole” (Lorenzen and
Lorenzen 2008 pp. 78).

Subak activities. There are several routines which are being carried by subak. The most
common one is the voluntary communal labour days which is usually conducted on Sundays.
The pekaseh or kelian tempekan organised the assignments and requirements which are
calculated on the basis of the size of land a household cultivates, commonly, those who
have more land contribute more than those with the smaller land, in term of labour (might
be different, depends on the subak). Members who are not attending the communal labour
work will have to pay retribution, depends on the laws of the subak.

In order to adjust the laws or to discuss general subak administrative matters and future
work plans, they hold regular gatherings which takes place between one to four times a
year, depends on the subak. There are seven ceremonies for one cultivation cycle.
Ceremonies on the subak level, in which every farming household is obliged to participate,
are only performed in the main cultivation season (kerta masa) and consist of five
ceremonies organized by the subak head, plus one on the inter subak level.

What are their roles? Since the beginning of the New Order era (1966), the role of
traditional administrative institutions such as subak has been developing as the political
situation changes in Indonesia. Firstly, it has survived the suppression and marginalisation
during the iron-hand government of Soeharto, “Such customary-or adat-institutions were
marginalised through much of Indonesia during the Soeharto regime, but not entirely so
here, where traditional villages remain strongly identified with Balinese Hinduism and
ancestor veneration, and continue to set communal norms guiding everyday life” (Pedersen
2007 pp. 199). Secondly, since the fall of Soeharto’s regime, which was the start of
decentralization in Indonesia, the role of these customary institutions got strengthened. “In

36
March 2001, the Balinese provincial government strengthened the traditional village with a
new regulation (Perda Propinsi Bali No. 3) that, among other things, shifts the village’s
highest authority from the village head, a position articulated with the centralised power of
Soeharto regime, to the collective, the village assembly, with an elected leadership
independent from the head” (Pedersen 2007 pp. 199).

Subak also acts as the gate for innovations which come from external non-state institutions.
subak which was before more focused on the socio-technical and religious-ritual such as
managing the irrigation water, has now started to give more attention to more business
oriented activities such as value added activities and supporting agro-tourism activities.
According to Gede Sedana, the dean of the Agriculture Department of Dwijendra University
“the presence of economic motives in subak is a positive breakthrough which can lead to
improved livelihood, local economy, and also local ecosystem integration”36. In the practice,
however, as mentioned by MacRae (2011), economic motives mostly emerged and are held
by some key actors; in this case, subak also plays a role in providing a market for the
farmers.

The history of incorporation of subak. Being a traditional non-state organization in

modernized era has brought subak into a space where it has to adapt with the current
situation. Subak can be seen as a hindrance by the government because they have their own
laws which sometimes don’t go in a way with the government plans. “Informality is the
enemy of government improvement projects. Informality implies a shared understanding of
the resource users, not only on how they manage the resource, but also on how the
resource is embedded in the local environment”(Lorenzen and Lorenzen 2008 pp. 77).

Lorenzen and Lorenzen (2008) mentioned about disharmonies about subak and the
government in The government complain that Balinese farmers are strong-headed, which
leads to non-compliant behaviour and regular conflicts that in turn negatively affect optimal
irrigation management. They lament that authority structures are unclear in a subak and
that decision making lacks formal regulations” (Ibid, 2008). Non-state institutions are seen
as weak links. The government believes that to strengthen irrigation management, there
would have to be an emphasis on the formal arrangements in decision-making, focusing on
representation, regularization, and formalization. This implies that informal institutions
should be gradually replaced by modern arrangements in order to reduce the deficiencies of
the traditional (Seabright 1993).

While in the farmers’ perspective, subak is a main casing in which they manage their
agriculture activities. Subak is so embedded in their life since the ancient times, which
makes it clear if in many cases there are some confusion within the farmers when it comes
to which rules they have to oblige, the subak or the government. “For Balinese farmers, the
subak is the framework in which the informal management can take place. External

36
I Gede Sedana, personal communication via telephone

37
agencies tend to concentrate on the formal subak structure such as its law, internal
hierarchy, and irrigation infrastructure, whereas subak members use both formal and
informal subak institutions to optimize irrigation”(Lorenzen and Lorenzen 2008 pp. 78).

According to Sunarka who is an extension agent and was a subak leader, during the early
years of Bimas programs dissemination, the subak was seen as a hindrance (especially) to
agricultural modernization. He explained that in his village, he and his brother had to be the
first one who applied the Bimas packages to show the effect to other farmers. At that time
they both did not want their subak to be seen as ‘backward’ especially compared to other
farmer groups across Indonesia. In the middle of Green Revolution process (1980s) the
image of subak as the gate to reach the farmers shifted to be more positive in the
government’s and researchers perspectives “subak was rediscovered (and often idealized)
as a successful ‘community-based’ farmer-managed irrigation system (FMIS), to be learned
from and replicated in irrigation development policies” (FAO 1982; Sutawan 1987 in Roth
2014 pp. 5-6). MacRae (2011) argues that the subaks are not agents of change, but more
like the channels for change and in the interaction with other institutions, the subaks are
also continuously changing (MacRae and Arthawiguna 2011).

However, there are of course many cases in which subak cooperate well with other external
institutions. Ketut Karyada, the head of dissemination department of BPTP (bureau of
agricultural extension and technology assessment) argued that “Subak is the main gate to
reach the farmers. In order to open it, we need the key, which is the subak leader. Once we
gained their trust, there should be less problems in cooperating with them and disseminate
our programs”37. Nevertheless, he stated that the government also has to be careful in
working with the subak, because there are subak leaders who are using their connection
with the government for their own benefits.

To be the gate of external institutions in reaching the farmer, has made subak into a space
where many institutions meet and negotiate their agendas which also intersect with the
agendas of the subak itself. In some cases, the programs of government and those which
came from the NGO supported each other such as the Simantri program from the
government with the Permaculture project from IDEP. For other cases where permaculture
projects meet the farming intensification program of the government, it created
contestations of farming approaches within the farmers.

“Detailed ethnographic studies of individual subaks (Hobart 1980; Jha 2002; Lorenzen 2006),
indicate that the subaks are neither as homogeneous nor as harmonious as some other
studies have suggested. Their internal workings are complex and often contradictory and
contested” (MacRae and Arthawiguna 2011 pp. 12). The continuously changing roles and
various characteristics of subak and its interaction with other institutions created room for
manoeuvre for farmers in various and dynamic ways. Even though farmers have their own

37
Ketut Karyada, interview on 01-29-2014 in Denpasar, Bali

38
freedom in deciding what to do to their farm, their decisions are still largely influenced by
other members and especially the subak leaders (by seeing them as examples, or
competitors etc.), where they usually put their trust in.

3.2.2. Dinas Pertanian (Agriculture Agency)

Dinas pertanian (agriculture agency) is a province level government institution that covers
the making and implementation of agricultural related policies and programs such as the
socio-economic condition of the farmers, research, and technology dissemination. In Bali,
dinas pertanian had been through several changes in its structure. The latest structure was
built based on the Local Government Law No. 2/2008 which regulates the job descriptions,
the function of the structure and its relation to other institutions. Since the decentralization,
the agriculture agency has been given autonomy in creating its own framework in
developing Balinese agriculture as stated in the constitution No. 32/2004. The dinas then
decided to focus on the food security and food supply.

Although one of the dinas’s main programs is encouraging farmers to do more

environmental friendly agricultural practices, there is also the Intensifikasi Pertanian
(farming intensification) program to improve farmer’s livelihood by boosting their farm’s
productivity through conventional farming methods. This program involves introduction of
latest version of pesticides and fertilizers, along with the directions on how to use it in the
most effective and efficient way. It also provides aids in the form of free chemicals and
seeds which are given regularly. This also has impact in shaping the room for manoeuvre of
farmers by giving them ‘advantages’ if they choose to go along with the conventional
farming method.

In addition, the current focus of the dinas in developing Balinese agriculture lays in the
innovation and its disseminations. The current innovations are mainly focused on improving
and reintroducing the local knowledge in Balinese agriculture to the farmers, especially in
the terms of sustainability. One of the main programs is Simantri (Sistem Pertanian
Terintegrasi - Integrated Farming System). This program started in 2009, and has been
disseminated to 300 groups which are spread in all regencies in Bali. The main aim of this
program is to rejuvenate the agriculture sector towards more environmental friendly
practices. This program involves knowledge transfer, aid in form of funds, animals,
materials, and technology installation. “Simantri is basically integrating farming, fisheries,
and poultry/cattle in one place which is also equipped with composters, biogas installation,
and fodder processors. We hope that through this program we will be able to create self-
sufficiency in the farmers, improving their livelihood, and regenerate their damaged nature,
this program is one of many others to support the intention of government to make Bali
green and clean”38. This program certainly has its influence in shaping the room for

38
Ketut Karyada, interview on 01-29-2014 in Denpasar, Bali

39
manoeuvre of farmers in choosing their agricultural practices by providing aids and
assistances for those who are willing (but selected) to do alternative way of farming.

The other important role of dinas as the hand of the state in Balinese agriculture lies in their
policies. For example, in their coordination with the Balai Benih (official breeding centre;
seed farm) they have to monitor the seed source that are being used in the field based on
the law of Ministry Of Agriculture No. 41/Permentan/OT.140/9/2006 which regulates not
only seeds quality control and certification, but also authorization for farmers who are
allowed to produce seeds. This rules for sure restricted most of the farmers, to produce
their own seeds, thus it limits their room for manoeuvre.

The dinas does not operate by itself in the field, since the past 2 decades, dinas is
cooperating with another institution especially in the practical activities such as research
and on field implementation (extensions, action research). This institution is called BPTP
(Balai Penyuluhan dan Teknologi Pertanian - bureau of agricultural extension and
technology assessment) which is described in the next sub-section.

3.2.3. Balai Penyuluhan dan Teknologi Pertanian (BPTP) – bureau of agricultural

extension and technology assessment
Before the decentralization, the Ministry of Agriculture had already going in the direction of
giving local autonomy to local agriculture department in their research and assessment
activities. This leads to the forming of BPTP and IP2TP (Instalasi Penelitian dan Pengkajian
Teknologi Pertanian – Agricultural Technology Assessment and Research Installation) as the
hand of central Ministry of Agriculture in producing and disseminating new innovations,
under the Minister’s Law No. 798/KPTS/OT.210/12/94. The objective of these two
institutions is to accelerate the dissemination and adoption mechanisms of new
technologies and innovations produced by the Agricultural Research Centre. In the first
stage of its assembly, IP2TP was formed in Denpasar under the BPTP of Karangploso in East
Java. In June 2001, under the minister’s law No. 350/KPTS/OT.210/6/2001, IP2TP Denpasar
officially reformed to BPTP Bali, equal to other BPTPs in other areas in Indonesia.

According to Ketut, the head of dissemination department of BPTP Bali, the idea of BPTP
came from the officers themselves who faced many difficulties in disseminating new
innovations to the farmers. “In the past, we had many research institutions representing
different field of sciences, there were so many researches, but the application in the field
was rare. It means that most of the people did their research only to get degrees; the results
went to the desk... only small parts reached the farmers. Secondly, there were many of new
varieties or innovations, which were supposed to immediately get adopted by farmers, but
it didn’t. For example, in the past, to get new variety of rice, from the moment it got
invented till it reached the farmers, sometimes it took 5 years”39.

39
Ketut Karyada, interview on 01-29-2014 in Denpasar, Bali

40
Since the 1990s, there is a new paradigm among the officers who started to realize that
research has to be merged with extension. That is the beginning of REL (Research -
Extension Linkages). “People realised that research and extension should be one, so this
institution of BPTP -was built. Before that, our name was Agricultural Extension Institute,
and every province in Indonesia has one. So we act as the hand of the Agriculture Research
Institution, but we also have extension agents. And it also applied for our services, so an
extension agent can also do research, and vice versa. So as soon as we have new innovation,
we immediately apply it on field”40.

According to him, since then, the technology dissemination rate got boosted, the
relationship between farmers and officials became less formal, and farmers started to get
involved in researches and even future development plans. “For example we just got new
variety of rice, just arrived in Sukamandi (paddy centre), it just came this year, and we are
now testing it on the field, in multi-locations. We brought it to the field, we analysed and
assessed it with the farmers, we make future plans with them, and also field research with
them, so they will know, and both we and the farmers directly witnessed the process. Then
we looked for the positives, and gathered the negatives as reference for future
development. So now, if we got new innovations, it only takes a year at most to reach the
field”41.

The other function of BPTP is to assess the applicability of products of the research institute
(such as the composters, biogas processors in Simantri or new kind of chemicals), together
with the farmers, extension agents, and researchers. The involvement of farmers in many of
government programs has brought new insights for them, making them more aware of how
the government works, and the most interesting thing is that they can give input to the
government to make better plans. However, involvement is limited for farmers’ group or
subak leaders which are considered as representative of their members. This condition is
very susceptible for act of corruptions both in the government level and in farmer’s level
(subak leaders). I heard from one of the farmers that he had seen many cases that a village
which is on the list of Simantri beneficiaries, but the reality in the field they have no Simantri
equipment or activities. “It means that the aid didn’t reach them, or it reached them but
they used it for something else, or they sold the materials and animals, or other
possibilities”42. The other problem is that the subak or farmers’ group leaders might
prioritize their own agendas when they give inputs to the government for the coming
programs. This condition also indirectly affecting the room for manoeuvre for farmers since
it hinders away some opportunities that otherwise would have been available for other
farmers.

40
Ibid, 01-29-2014
41
Ibid, 01-29-2014
42
Ketut Karyada, interview on 01-29-2014 in Denpasar, Bali

41
Collaborating with many other institutions in their programs, made BPTP into a hub for
other government institutions. “Under this, many other government institutions (such as
Bappeda - local development agency, Dinas Peternakan – animal husbandry agency, Dinas
pertanian – agricultural agency, and Dinas Perikanan – fisheries agency) can merge with us.
Then we will acknowledge that each success is the success of all involved institutions,
including the farmers”. This brings synergy to government institutions which used to be
‘competing’ in claiming the success of a program, which in the end creates a better
atmosphere in the farmer’s level.

The activities of BPTP are not only focused at the farmer’s level, but they are also involved in
making strategic plans for Balinese development in general. For example in the current
Balinese development master plan, together with other government institutions, they
classified the regions in Bali for its specialization based on the environmental and socio-
economic condition of each location. In the master plan, the northern part of Bali is
specialised in agricultural production while the southern part is for the market (mostly
through tourism).

However, due to the unique characteristics of Gianyar which is located in the middle of Bali
and has both tourism and agriculture potentials, they planned to develop it as an
agricultural based tourism area where the production, processing, marketing and tourism is
present in one area. “After we discussed, we pick agro-polis as Gianyar’s main development
path. The gap between cities and villages is so wide, while in reality, cities need villages, and
vice versa, but somehow we see the gap is too wide. Then we think of some concepts to
bridge the gap between the cities and the villages, that’s how we came with agro-polis idea.
In agricultural areas, we will develop them in the path of agribusiness and agro-industry, so
all the necessities of cities are being produced and processed in the villages, for example, in
a coffee producing village, we have to build the processing factory, so they can sell the main
product directly to the retailer to cut the chain, that’s the basic idea. While for the city
areas, we will develop the infrastructures and the tourism sectors to provide the market”43.

This government strategic planning adds more dynamics to the agricultural sector, both
hindering and providing opportunities for farmers in various ways. More about this is
described in the last result chapter of this thesis which describes cases of farming styles that
I came across during the fieldwork. The other element that I found important in shaping the
room for manoeuvre is the involvement of NGOs and academicians which is described in the
following sub-section.

43
Ibid, 01-29-2014

42
3.2.4. IDEP (Indonesian Development for Education in Permaculture) Foundation and
BOA (Bali Organic Association)
IDEP is a local Indonesian NGO based in Bali - Indonesia, founded in 1999, that develops and
delivers training, community programs and media related to sustainable development
through Permaculture (permanent culture and permanent agriculture, a system designed
for environmental management within the community. Permaculture aims to fulfil needs
and to remain sustainable by utilizing local resources through environmentally sound
methods that are energy efficient and balance local wisdom with nature and the
environment), and Community-based Disaster Management. Ade, the director of IDEP
shared me the story of how IDEP was founded until it reaches the current state. It was
started as a group of people who were concerned about the situation of Indonesia,
especially Bali during the crisis after the fall of new order era (1998). The group discussed
the growing challenges being faced by Indonesian communities and conducted an
evaluation of existing natural and human resources nationwide. They decided to focus on
facilitating NGO program's in as many areas of Indonesia as possible through the 'Training of
Trainers' in Permaculture Design. This training offered organizations the understanding and
tools to assist their local communities to provide food, shelter, energy and other needs in a
sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

This Training is the forerunner of the IDEP establishment in 1999, the organization's focus
on the implementation of permaculture as an alternative solution to the financial crisis.
Over time, IDEP foundation try to provide assistance to communities related to
permaculture and sustainable living that
helps communities in recovering from a
post-disaster situation. In 2002, Bali
suffered the human tragedy that is better
known as the Bali Bombings. These events
made IDEP as an organization realize the
importance of disaster preparedness for
the community. Through times, IDEP
turned into a local organization which
develops innovations related to
permaculture or disaster risk reduction, Figure 10: Permaculture Training (IDEP)
focuses on sustainability, transparency
and accountability of the organization.

One of IDEP’s projects is encouraging people (especially farmers) to do permaculture. Ade

stresses that the Permaculture approach is an important alternative that moves forward in
producing healthy organic plantations, home garden designs, more efficient village layouts,
healthier environments, alternative energy production methods, and sustainable economic
development. “This design method works with nature's systems, reduces pollution and
waste, and is able to produce food and productive yields with low energy. Permaculture is
43
applicable to both urban and rural contexts, and to any scale of design. It is about working
with, rather than against nature”44.

The permaculture project involves organic agriculture trainings for the farmers, providing
agro-inputs materials such as manures and seeds, and linking the farmers to the organic
market. Compared to Simantri, IDEP’s permaculture project works more efficiently in its
own way. Since it doesn’t involve large funding and it came from an NGO, farmers are less
likely to participate. Thus, this project has only limited number of participants in each area.
However, this condition acts as a filter so that the participants are mostly those who are
really interested and having their own motivation of going towards a more environmental
friendly way of farming.

The other project of IDEP is Seeds

Saving project, where they ‘hunt’
original Balinese seeds and reproduce
them in order to maintain their
existence. This involves training of
how to organically breed seeds to the
farmers, recovering seeds from the
forest, cooperating with farmers who
are willing to grow the seeds, and
Figure 11: Self-bred organic seeds marketing the seeds in some local
organic shops. “Seed is a sensitive
issue here because it has been monopolized by the big corporations from the level of local
to multi-national. They even ‘bribed’ the government so that sometimes we had difficulties
to breed and multiply our own seed, which doesn’t make any sense. But of course the
corporations will not like what we are doing now, because if farmers can grow their own
seeds then it means that the corporation will lose their market”45.

This project creates an interesting situation among the farmers by dividing them into a small
group who agrees to it and a bigger group is not. One of the farmers who were doing the
project stated that “It is hard to make the people think that it’s better to produce our own
seeds, because we have been practicing conventional farming since we were young.
Especially if we see the government rules, then of course most of us don’t want to break
government rules. That is why in our subak, we have approximately 78 members, only 5
members are in favour of adopting the ideas of seed saving project from IDEP”46. In this
project, the farmers replant some of the produced seeds, and sold most of them to IDEP
which are then being sold in 13 organic stores and also being shipped to other islands.

44
Ade, Interview on 09-24-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
45
Ibid, 09-24-2013
46
Ade, Interview on 09-24-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

44
In doing their projects, IDEP sometimes worked together with other institutions. One of the
institutions who are working with IDEP is the BOA (Bali Organic Association) which is an
NGO under the Udayana University, led by Ni Luh Kartini who is also working as a lecturer
specialized in soil science in that university. BOA was born by Ni Luh’s empathy towards the
destruction of Balinese nature and local knowledge by the endless waves of modernization.

She grew up in a farmer’s family in pre-Green Revolution time (before 1967), Ni Luh
witnessed her parents practiced agriculture in traditional way until the Green Revolution
packages being introduced to her village. “I remember when I was a little girl, my dad used
chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and since then I noticed that the worms in the soil died
so my ducks were not able to feed on them anymore, I felt so sad. But that is why I decided
to study soil science, it might sound funny but that’s the truth”47. That simple event
triggered her empathy towards nature and has been her motivation in her efforts to restore
the damaged environment, and one of her efforts is to initiate the founding of BOA.

BOA was founded in 1990 by Ni Luh Kartini together with a group of environmentalists who
are concerned about the degradation of Balinese nature, tradition, and culture. In its official
declaration in 2000, BOA managed to gather all the representatives of Balinese farmers,
fishermen, NGOs, Local and National Government (Dinas and the Ministry of Agriculture),
which then leads to the main framework of Bali Organic Island development path.

The activities of BOA are mostly focused in socializing the

importance of going back to the environmental friendly
agricultural practices through rediscovering the ancient
practices that used to be done by the ancestors. BOA also
actively giving trainings related to the negative impacts of
conventional farming methods which are currently being
widely practiced in Bali. In the practice, BOA targets the
housewives of farmers for trainings related to health issues
that might be caused by conventional agriculture products and
practices, which motivated them to be involved in government
program LP3I, a program that aims to make the housewives to
be self-sufficient in horticulture products by growing them in Figure 12: Elementary students
the backyard (home gardening). participating in permaculture
course

One of BOA projects which interests me was the ‘go back to ancestry’ project which
encouraged farmers to go back to the old practices and beliefs by socializing the old local
knowledge. This involves training in old ceremonies, as ways to deal with pests and improve
productivity. When I confirmed the story to one of the participant, he admitted that it works
quite well “I understand for some people this will not make any sense. But we have been
practicing it ourselves. There are different ceremonies for different purpose. So far I have

47
Ni Luh Kartini (Bali Organic Association), interview on 11-12-2013 in Udayana University, Denpasar, Bali

45
noticed that my rice field got healthier, and the pests are not as fierce as before, and if it
didn’t work, I don’t think there will be as many a participants as now”48. I already found it
interesting how this project has able to change the views of farmers, meaning that it also
influenced their room for manoeuvre in choosing their farming style.

I found one similar interest of BOA and IDEP which is encouraging the youth to be interested
in farming through conducting various projects from farming trainings for the elementary
school students to organic bazaar complete with musical performance for the teenagers.
Both IDEP and BOA is positive towards the impact of the project seeing that there are
always at least 100 participants in each event. But in my opinion, there is no guarantee that
the projects are really working in influencing the youth in deciding their future jobs, to
pursue their future as a farmer. They might be interested at some point, but then as they
grow up, getting more experiences and influences from their environment (especially their
own parents who are sending them to tourism schools), there is always a chance that they
are going to re-lose their interest in farming.

The involvement of NGOs in Balinese agriculture has certainly created more dynamics by
giving knowledge, technologies, and even market to the farmers, providing them with
alternatives in deciding on their way of farming. Nonetheless, the movement of NGOs in Bali
also cannot be separated from the presence of tourism which is supporting their activities in
many ways. For example, there are more and more tourists who are interested in
participating IDEP’s permaculture program, which cannot be done without continuous
publication in the internet and scientific articles. These publications made and written by
tourists, then, contribute to promoting IDEP, making it widely known. Tourism in Bali has
brought many advantages and disadvantages which together, create more dynamics in
Balinese agriculture.

3.3. Tourism
Bali has been famous of its ‘exoticness’ since the colonial era, when the Dutch arrived in
what they called Island Eden, where they see classical Java culture framed in a beautiful
landscape of mountains, forests, and beaches enfolded in tropical climate. After a long
struggle to ‘tame’ Bali, the Dutch then decided to conserve Bali and its culture, and shape it
as a ‘living museum’. “In the period of 1946-199, an aptly named Dutch economic official, G.
Koopman, had sought to re-establish tourism in Bali as part of the Dutch attempt to restore
their empire to its pre-war state” (Vickers 2011 pp. 459). After the independence of
Indonesia, the government decided to continue the idea which was invented by the colonial
regime, to make Bali contributes to the country as a tourist destination. “Between 1950 and
1965 Indonesians began to focus on re-establishing tourism for themselves” (Ibid 2011).

Bali’s reputation as one of top tourist destinations in the world is unquestionable. The
uniqueness of Bali in relation to its society which strongly connected with its culture and

48
Ni Luh Kartini (Bali Organic Association), interview on 11-12-2013 in Udayana University, Denpasar, Bali

46
religion has been popular since the colonial era. After the contact with European explorers
in the early sixteenth century, the island of Bali became much more known to the outside
world because of the influences of artists, dancers, and novelists in the 1920s and 1930s.
The long and continuously constructed image of the beauty of Bali’s nature and the way
Balinese interact with it had shaped an attractive display of ceremonies, temples,
architectures, offerings, dances, and crafts which is both mesmerizing and alluring to visitors
from outside Bali. The huge tourism potential then got noticed only short time after
Indonesia’s Independence Day. Thus, the development of Bali is always mostly focused on
the tourism sector up until now, which made the tourism sector grow steadily. “Tourism
developed rapidly, from 5000 foreign visitors arriving at Bali’s international airport per year
in 1968 to more than 5000 tourists per day 40 years later” (Wall 1996; BPS Bali 2010).

Tourism is a major economic resource to the island of Bali since it generates a steady source
of income from the micro to the macro level just like timber and minerals for Borneo and
Papua. It is merged with the society so that the implications of tourism can be seen in most
of Balinese daily activities. Tourism has become an extremely important sector of the
Balinese economy in its own right, and it also intersects with and has implications for most
other economic sectors. For example, the agricultural landscape, the production of
handicrafts, and the rich cultural traditions attract visitors out of the major resorts into rural
areas. Thus, the landscape, the very way of life and even the way of death (for cremations
have become a tourism attraction) constitute a major part of the resource base with attracts
visitors (Wall 1996).

The government promotes tourism to reach the objectives of economic development, and it
is working quite well in Bali. By being one of major sources of Balinese economy, tourism
has been able to add more dynamics to Balinese agricultural society. Many literatures
exposed the negative impacts of tourism in Bali such as: The proliferating construction of
tourist accommodations and facilities which poses threats to the availability and access of
land and water; the promising job opportunities and its prestige created dreams and desires
for a better future, drawing the population (especially the youths) away from agriculture;
diminishing locality; not to mention the environmental degradation caused by excessive
continuous resource usage and bad waste management. “Over the last decades awareness
of these problems has gradually been growing, also leading to a critical rethinking of the
current tourism-based development strategy, and a revaluation of the role of agriculture-
based livelihoods” (Roth 2014).

Tourism nowadays has become so embedded in Balinese culture to the point that it is
sometimes hard to differentiate if a practice (e.g. ceremony) is being performed as part of
the tradition or an attraction, and it also works the same for the society. Sometimes the
author cannot imagine how it feels to be an object of attraction while doing my daily
routines, even for something that so sacred such as ceremony or praying. The presence of
tourists has indeed its impact on many aspects of Balinese life. To see various worldwide

47
cultures got mixed in one place such as Ubud without that much tension around gave me a
false impression of how harmonious they are. However, in the later I found out that some
Balinese are ‘masking’ themselves, hiding their true feelings, or even being ignorant in order
to keep the ‘harmony’ so that tourism (and their livelihood) can live on. The contrast can
also go in a different way, for example, I saw many Balinese stripped their former identities
in order to become more ‘western’, but also there are many immigrants (non-white) or
expatriates (if they are white) who have lived long enough in Bali to consider themselves as
Balinese, stripping their former identities and trying hard to be real Balinese. In some cases,
their efforts of becoming ‘Balinese’ went really well that in the end they seem to be more
‘Balinese’ than the real Balinese.

Most of these expatriates have

“Some tourists are respectful towards our culture, more concerns towards the cultural
tradition and beliefs, some of them are ignorant. and environmental issues in Bali
However, most Balinese don’t really care about than some of the real Balinese
those matters anymore, it’s not that we don’t themselves, as an example, Petra
care, but it’s more like because we are so annoyed Schneider a Canadian who has been
that our feelings got numb, that’s why most of us living in Bali for 27 years. She came
prefer to ignore them”. Nyoman, taxi driver to Bali as a tourist when she was
young as a part of her adventure
time. In Bali, she experienced many
things that influenced her to take a
path to become a Balinese and
contribute to the society. “During
the first years I live in Bali, I had
many discussions, seen many things
happened in Bali, I got so many
insights from the locals, and then I
decided that I cannot leave Bali if I
really care that much about what is happening to Bali, there are so many changes and
disruptions to the balance here. I really feel the responsibility to help Bali with my skills,
knowledge and understandings”49.

After what she experienced, her love of Bali went beyond enjoying the life of a tourist. That
even in 1998, during the chaotic political crisis in Indonesia or in 2002 when the Bali
Bombing happened, unlike most of the foreigners who decided to leave the country at that
time, she decided to stay in Bali. “I have seen too many crazy things happened and going on
here, I was here when Soeharto went down in 1998, I saw melted bodies of the victims of
the Bali Bombing in 2002 when we volunteered in the disaster response project of IDEP, I
saw and still seeing the nature got robbed, land got transformed into hotels or villas, I have

49
Petra Schneider, interview on 01-18-2014 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

48
lived here long enough to notice that the groundwater reserves is rapidly decreasing, how
farmers crazily using chemicals in their farms… it’s too much… that’s why I decided that if I
want to help out here, it’s really the time that I had to go all out. So I brought my family
here, sold everything back in Canada, bring every single penny I had, and decided to be a
permanent citizen in Bali”50.

With all the capital that she brought, along with other expatriates she initiated the founding
of Alam Santi Foundation, which is the mother foundation of IDEP. In pursuing her dreams
to save Bali, Petra worked together with other actors ranged from local farmers,
government officers, and even famous individuals such as Robin Francis, the grandmother of
permaculture who is, based on Petra’s information, the pioneer of permaculture in Bali
along with Petra and others who were involved, or in IDEP’s latest activity which involves
Vandana Shiva giving seminars about seeds sovereignty in Bali. Thus, this is one of many
examples where tourism indirectly affected the room for manoeuvre by bringing not only
technology and knowledge, but also created a network which brings dynamics in its own
way.

The other element that was brought by tourism is the market, which can be in many forms.
From the proliferating numbers of warungs (local café), hotels, and restaurants which need
a steady flow of supply; the needs of exotic experience to play in the mud or harvest your
own vegetables and fruits which opened the opportunity of agro-tourism; to the needs of
enjoying the beautiful agricultural landscape which has brought a unique opportunity to
rent out the rice fields located nearby villas or hotels so that the farmers can gain additional
income and save their lands from the land buyers. The steadily growing tourism sector in
this case means steady waves of demands that can be fulfilled by the agriculture sector in
various ways.

Nevertheless, tourism also came with its Janus face. Aside of all the positives that it carries,
there are also some negative implications towards the agricultural sector. The first one is
the decreasing of arable lands due to the growing of tourism which needs more and more
lodging and attraction sites, which then leads to the transformation of agricultural lands to
non-agricultural lands. Pak Made, the owner of a villa in Ubud explained that “The least we
can do to keep our lands here is to control ourselves not to be tempted to sell our lands for
ridiculous offers. The normal price of land here (Ubud) used to be only 100-300 thousand
rupiahs (7.5 – 22 euros) per m2, but now I heard it reaches 1-2 million rupiahs (70-150
euros) per m2 or even more, only God knows… even last month someone from Jakarta gave
me a blank cheque and told me to fill it myself for how much I am willing to sell my 1000 m2
rice fields… can you imagine how hard it is for us to just keep our lands, especially for those
who are not thinking in a long term”51.

50
Petra Schneider, interview on 01-18-2014 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
51
Made, interview on 01-29-2014

49
The second most influential impact of tourism is the degradation of labour regeneration in
the agriculture sector. Most of the parents in rural areas are guiding their children to get out
of the agricultural world, since in their perspectives, being a farmer is not as lucrative
and/or as prestigious as working with a neat suit in the cities, especially in Bali, where
tourism brings many opportunities of employment. “With time freed up and off-farm
employment opportunities available, contemporary farming is less important within the
total farming household economy. Agriculture as source of employment becomes only one
of man options” (OECD 2001; Baker and Molle 2004 in Lorenzen and Lorenzen 2010 pp. 30).
This condition has caused a shift of the labour force from agriculture to non-agriculture
sector “while the agricultural labour force decreased from 61% in 1976 to 36% in 2008, the
trade industry, which includes part of the tourism industry, increased its labour share from
12% in 1976 to 24% in 2008” (Bendesa and Sukarsa 1980; BPS Bali 2010a in Lorenzen and
Lorenzen 2010 pp. 30).

The implication of this phenomenon does not only stop at lack of young labour in the
agricultural sector, but it snowballed causing more complex implications as most farmers
reacted by hiring temporal labours from neighbouring islands (Java and Lombok) which is
not only adding the cost of production, but also bringing cultural clashes, which happen
occasionally (especially with those who came from Java). This phenomenon also caused a
gap in knowledge: since the young generations are moving out of the village, they did not
get the chance to learn how to farm. I came across several youths aging between 15 – 24
years old in the Buahan Kaja village, and all of them are currently studying or having a plan
to study at tourism schools. When I asked them what will happen to their farm in the future,
they told me that their father will take care of it and once they got old, they will have to go
back and replace their fathers in managing their farms. Regarding to the knowledge of
farming, they told me that they have no worries since they will learn it anyway once they
are in the field. But this means that once they started managing their farm, it will be too late
for them to be more versatile in the room for manoeuvre.

Tourism also has its influence on the government policies such as the emergence of ajeg bali
movement in a sense that Balinese can also uses their sets of ‘uniqueness’ which they are
trying hard to maintain, as attraction for the visitors; this includes programs such as Bali
Green and Clean, and Bali Organic in order to create the desired ‘paradise’. Wayan, an old
farmer who stands against the organic movement explicitly stated his sceptical perception
towards this matter “Tell me why I should shift my farming to what we used to do? In the
past, we were doing it (sustainable farming) and then the government told us to use
chemicals. And now, because tamu (tourists) like to eat healthy and live healthy, they
expect us to do their biddings. Let me tell you, I, and most of Balinese don’t eat those
organic healthy food, we don’t sleep in those villas… it is all for tourists, it is always been like
this since a long time ago… when are we, as Balinese, going to be prioritised?”52.

52
Wayan Sudira, Interview on 12-31-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

50
3.4. Conclusion
The historical events has left its marks in many aspects of Balinese farmers life by putting
memories that can trigger their motivation to construct certain foundation as a point of
departure for their way of thinking. Historical events also shaped the current state of
Balinese settings (culture, institutions, and tourism) which are continuously interacting with
each other, creating room for manoeuvre for the farmers by providing opportunities and
hindrances in form of markets and technology.

There are different sets of structures which are offering and supporting different styles of
farming. As I have shown in this chapter there is a dualism of the ‘old’ structure which
support the conventional farming, and the ‘new’ structure which support the organic
farming. Aside from market mechanisms that undoubtedly have an influence on shaping the
room for manoeuvre, both government (e.g. dinas and BPTP) and non-government
institutions (subak and NGOs) also play an important role. Additionally, above that, there is
the presence of tourism which is of great importance for Balinese structures, since it is the
most economically contributing sector to the island. In the cases that I encountered during
my fieldwork, different farmers who practice different styles of farming are embedded in
different set of structures.

Within this room for manoeuvre, farmers are exercising their agency in taking the
opportunities and facing the constraints, as a way to decide their ‘ideal’ way of farming.
Their agency is constructed through reading the situations, their surroundings, filtering the
information that came to them; and through all these processes that influenced by the
settings, they decide what they perceive as ‘squeeze’ and what they think as best solutions
to it in order to reach their goal. Different settings and experiences created heterogeneity of
perspectives on how to deal with the squeeze, leading them to practice different farming
styles. In the next chapter, these different perspectives that come from different actors are
described.

51
CHAPTER IV: AGRICULTURE DEVELOPMENT AT A CROSSROADS (Perspectives
on Agricultural Modernization in Bali)

The fourth chapter provides the actors’ perspectives toward current and future plan for
agriculture development. In facing problems that are hampering Balinese agriculture, actors
from government to farmers have different perspectives to the proposed solutions. These
perspectives are influenced by the structure and settings in which the farmers are
organizing their farm. These perspectives are then becoming the basis for motives of
farmers in pursuing a certain farming style. After knowing the structure and settings of the
agricultural related actors in Gianyar, it is necessary to understand their perceptions and
responses toward the paths of agriculture development in order to grasp the link between
the structures which farmers are attached to, with their perspectives.

Many scholars studied the modernization of agricultural process and impacts on the
farmers, which in the process also involved different perspectives towards it. Hayami and
Ruttan (1985) illustrated agricultural modernization with the guiding technology and
institutions for agricultural transformation; while van der Ploeg (2003) defines it as the
orientation of agricultural policies toward the realisation of a modernized agriculture. “The
achievement of modernized agriculture i.e. the structural development of agriculture both
in terms of scale (objects of labour [e.g. hectares, cows] per labour unit) and in terms of
intensity (gross output per object of labour)” (Ploeg 2003).

Aside from the achievements that had been reached by agricultural modernization
processes, since the last few decades, discussion about the not so benign side of it started
to come to surface. Issues from commodification of rural life, externalization of knowledge
and agricultural inputs, to environmental degradation started to become concerns of many
actors in different levels. As Perkins (1982) stated that the Green Revolution, has been
praised and criticised over the past decades. Supporters argue that the Green Revolution
packages had been able to increase food supplies produced with the new practices, but
critics argue that the new technologies are environmentally destructive, unsustainable, and
socially inequitable. Moreover, “some social scientists argued that the Green Revolution
resulted in the displacement of marginal farmers, downgrading of the status of women
agriculturalists, and the tragic irony of increased hunger in the presence of enhanced
agricultural productivity” (Perkins 1982 pp. 6).

These issues are also airing in Balinese agricultural society. Some considered it as a
normative discourse about what the future of agriculture should look like, while others see
it as a threat to their livelihood, tradition and environmental sustainability. In Bali, the
problems that came along with agricultural modernization are worsened by the presence of
tourism, which brings threats to Balinese agriculture. However, this situation also creates
new opportunities for agriculture since tourism also brings markets, which have created

52
demands that need to be fulfilled. This combination created contestations about the ‘ideal’
way of farming, bringing questions to the future path of Balinese agriculture.

These perspectives are not only coming from policy makers and academicians but are also
thriving among the farmers. The perspectives of farmers toward agricultural modernization
are influenced by the room for manoeuvre created by the settings in which they practice
their agriculture. This chapter aims to focus on two different general opinions regarding
agricultural modernization, and on how these two main arguments created contestations of
agricultural modernization approaches in Balinese agricultural society. These opinions,
together with the structures of Balinese agriculture, will be explained as reasons that
construct the image of a certain ‘ideal’ way of farming among the farmers; which in the end
became the motivating force of different farming styles.

4.1. The Pros - Agricultural modernization is the Solution!

First let me start with the perspective of those government actors who are in favour of the
modern agricultural approaches. During my fieldwork, I have to admit that it was a bit
difficult in getting information from the government officers regarding the positive sides of
agricultural modernization in Bali, since their main programs now are running under the
shadow of THK (Tri Hita Karana) and Bali Organic, which mostly encourage farmers to shift
to a more sustainable farming methods. IMS53, a government officer who works at dinas
pertanian was willing to give me his ‘honest’ perspective towards agricultural
modernization. His first name showed that his ancestors came from one of the elite castes
in Bali, the wasya (trader) caste; aside of being a civil servant, he also runs a business in rice
trading. Being an officer since the 1980s, gave him the experiences that brought him to a
different standpoint than the current mainstream ideas of Bali Go Organic, which is in line
with the propagated THK.

He had seen the farming condition before the Bimas program as his parents owned a farm,
he worked as penyuluh (extension agent) when the Bimas programs got disseminated, and
since the late 1980s he works in the office. Since then, his works are mostly related in
designing programs for modern agriculture practices dissemination (farming intensification
programs). He told me that he knows well that agricultural modernization has its negative
impact. However, he stated that all the positives that had been achieved by agricultural
modernization should not be ignored. “Our main objective is to maintain and improve the
productivity, especially for rice. If we realised our potential, the agricultural sector can
actually become one of the strategic sectors to support the economy. This can be seen by its
durability during many crises that hampered the country, it even survived the biggest crisis
of Indonesia in 1998… and this would not be possible to reach by using the traditional
agriculture practices. Green revolution came with an amazing amount of investments, but

53
The respondent asked to be anonymous, interview on 12-27-2013 in Denpasar, Bali

53
through that, we improved our productivity from 3 to 5 tonnes per Ha, and even more in
other areas of Indonesia, up until today”54.

As an entrepreneur, he mostly based the wellbeing of farmers on their economic condition.

Thus, according to him, improving added value of farming product is one of the important
goals of development. In order to reach this, the most important sector to be improved is
the rural economy, thus, a good farming practice is that with the largest money flow. That is
why in his opinion, in order to improve the farmers’ livelihood, rural development should be
focused on factors that enhance the economy. “The economy condition of rural areas that
are built based on traditional values has a limited access to modern institutions, so the
interaction between institutions is low. That is why we also need to transform the
institution so that it can lead to structural transformation, and other abstract aspects which
shaped their behaviour such as values, norms, orientation, goals, etc.”55. This idea is covered
in the province development plans No. 13/2009/956 regarding food security, which focuses
on synergizing agriculture with the tourism sector in order to improve micro economy
through product diversification and added value improvement.

According to him, agricultural modernization is not the only thing to blame for the problems
that are threatening Balinese agriculture; there are more complex factors which created the
‘squeeze’ to the agriculture, and he perceived that agricultural modernization is the solution
to face it. “It is how the world works, and it is not as simple as the past… and thanks to
agricultural modernization, our agriculture managed to strive until now. For example,
thanks to the improvement of irrigation facilities, lands can still have access to water in this
water crisis time; thanks to hybrid seeds and chemicals, we manage to improve the
productivity”. When I confronted him with the side effects of agricultural modernization,
especially related to environmental degradation, he stated that it is inevitable, but so far he
has not seen any real effects from it and he believes someday science will find a better way.

Regarding the alternative ways of farming topic, he was rather critical towards it. His
pessimism towards organic practices is based on several reasons: first, he mentioned that
the market of organic products is growing due to tourism, but it mostly works on
horticulture products, not for rice, while most Balinese farmers grow rice. Second, the
difficulties in the process of shifting from chemical to organic agriculture practices which
have always been too hard for the small scale farmers (most of Balinese farmers) to
overcome. According to him, shifting the practices of farming to organic will pose more risks
to the farmers’ livelihoods and food security in the bigger picture. “Most farmers in Bali are
small scale farmers. There are not many farming households who have more than 0.5
hectares; even if you see the data the numbers of farmers who don’t own lands are
growing. Shifting to organic practices is not easy, in the first 2-3 years the productivity will
54
IMS, interview on 12-27-2013 in Denpasar, Bali
55
Ibid, 12-27-2013
56
Keputusan Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Provinsi Bali Nomor 13 Tahun 2009 Tentang Rekomendasi Atas
Laporan Keterangan Pertanggungjawaban Gubernur Bali Akhir Tahun Anggaran 2008.

54
drop to half and even to nothing. Moreover, small farmers only have that piece of land to
support their living, they cannot afford this. How can we keep the productivity in such
condition? The answer is through agricultural modernization, intensive farming”57. I should
say that he has a point in describing the difficulty of making Balinese farmers to practice
organic farming considering all the technical hindrances and administrative complexities.
However, there are some farmers who managed to shift or at least mix the modern and
organic practices without the assistance of external institutions.

The third reason is related to what he had seen in his working environment and the
performance of the government. He argued that it is good that the government and farmers
started to be more aware of environmental sustainability issues, but he thinks that it is just
part of promotion of tourism. He said that it might seem that the government is currently
concerned about environmental sustainability, thus, they are promoting organic practices
through their programs such as Simantri; but he doesn’t think it’s going to change the whole
Balinese way of farming, because the programs are not sincere, and mostly influenced by
tourism, to promote the ‘uniqueness’ of Bali as a healthy, spiritual rich and socio-
environmental harmonious paradise. “I don’t mean to badmouth my own boss, but if we see
the Simantri program which is being disseminated all over Bali, really ambitious… from
hundreds of Simantris, only a few which are really organic. The rest are still doing
conventional farming, not to mention the ‘shadow groups’58 and corruption, so I think it is
more money wasted”59.

He believes that if the government really cares about the environmental impact of modern
agriculture practices and wants to change it, it should be done through the same process as
the Green Revolution dissemination, massive and structured. However, he doesn’t think it’s
possible because it will require a huge amount of funding, while agriculture is not the ‘star’
of Balinese economy. It is true that within the last decades, the role of agriculture in
economic development of Bali is not that significant, it’s even relatively declining every year.
On the other hand, tourism and the industrial sector have a more significant role. This also
has its impact to the regeneration of farming labour, which then again, according to him, is a
threat to agriculture which can be dealt with through agricultural modernization. “Currently
agriculture is losing its charm; less and less people are willing to become a farmer, but the
needs are keep growing… let alone the needs that came from tourism, even our own needs
for ceremonies we have to procure the goods from outside Bali, such as coconut and
coconut leaves for offerings that we buy from Banyuwangi (East Java). This fact cannot be
ignored, and one of the rational solutions to this matter is through mechanisation”60.

57
IMS, interview on 12-27-2013 in Denpasar, Bali
58
According to IMS, because Simantri program provides free basic materials (including funds) needed for
organic practice, many of farmers created farmer’s group instantly just to access the aid
59
IMS, interview on 12-27-2013 in Denpasar, Bali
60
Ibid, 12-27-2013

55
His background as an experienced government officer brought him to a more macro
oriented point of view, he often uses arguments that compare the local and national
situation to other countries, “Without modernization, how can we compete with other
countries? Our country is a resource rich country without technology and knowledge, that’s
why we are poor… for example; even now our rice productivity is even below Vietnam. It
means that we still need to improve”61. His life experiences and his background allow him to
see and analyse the phenomena in a different way, putting him in a different position than
others who seemed to be more concerned about the negative sides of agricultural
modernisation. However, he could not share this view freely even in the post-reformation
era. Somewhere in the back of his head, he is still holding the awareness that going against
the stream is too risky for his career. Even in the midst of non-authoritarian government
era, he feels that he still cannot go too far against the ideas of those who are in power.

At the farmers’ level, I interviewed several farmers including Nyoman Sudira, a 65 years old
farmer that I met in Ubud. He came from a farmer’s family; he has been a farmer for his
entire life and experienced farming through three different eras. For some reasons, he is
very supportive towards the government. I would assume that it has something to do with
the G30SPKI event, since whenever I asked him about that topic; he always avoided the
topic (and staggering). He told me that he misses the New Order era where everything was
clear and structured. “Soeharto’s era is the best era so far. The government knew what
farmers should do; they helped us with free fertilisers, pesticides, and even giving us loans
so we have capital to improve our farming. They also trained us and provided us with
knowledge so our farming became modernized”62. He thinks that the New Order era is the
era when the government knew what to do and where to go to, he feels insecure in the
current government because of lack of coordination and unclear objectives. “At that time,
extension agents came to our village twice a week, sometimes every week, just to check if
we were doing fine, so there were more controls. But now it’s more seldom, so if I have
questions about farming, I often just ask my friends”63. This condition is affirmed by Sunarka
who is also working as an extension agent. According to him, in the New Order era,
everything was programmed from the central government. There were national objectives
that had to be reached, which were dispersed to local governments. So local government
also had certain objectives to reach, and because it was authoritarian, officers were more
motivated in reaching those goals.

Nyoman is supportive agricultural modernization; his first reason was more related to the
labour issue in Balinese agriculture. The social security related to the availability of a labour
force which was intact in the past, has been swept away by the wave of tourism, which has
drawn away the young generation of farmers in his village. He told me his story that it is
impossible for him nowadays to maintain the land without either hiring farmers from Java

61
Ibid, 12-27-2013
62
Nyoman Rudita, Interview on 12-03-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
63
Ibid, 12-03-2013

56
or renting a tractor from his subak. “I have one hectare of land, it’s not that big, but I am old
and my health condition is no longer as fit as when I was young. I cannot imagine if I have to
do land preparation like I used to do before modern agriculture practices got introduced.
Back then, it was possible because we worked together, there were still a lot of people in
the village and we were helping each other. But now we don’t have that many farmers
anymore, everyone work in the cities”64.

The second reason is related to learning the practices itself; he mentioned that he is too old
to learn how to farm organically. Aside of the difficult and long process of soil regeneration,
making organic fertilizers and pesticides, and re-setting the farm ecosystem, the procedures
of marketing organic products (especially certification) are also considered as barriers for
Nyoman. He told me that agricultural modernization is very important for him and has been
helping him in living his life and coping with the ‘modern’ era. “We are living in modern era
now. I need to fulfil different needs of my family, not only primary needs. That is why I need
to maintain my production, keeping it to optimum level”. Farming, which contributes the
most of his income, is not that lucrative even with his average productivity, considering the
high input costs and small land size. In addition to farming, in order to generate more
income, he is also working as souvenirs seller in Ubud. This condition is restricting him to
practice organic farming, which is more labour intensive. “Because of modern farming, I can
farm more efficiently and have more free time. I can use that free time to make more
money by selling souvenirs in Ubud market. I don’t think it is possible if I farm organically,
because organic farming requires more work on the farm”65. He could not risk losing his
largest source of income for several years (due to production drop during soil regeneration
time) and also losing his side jobs to work fulltime at his farm if he decides to shift his
practice to organic.

The other farmer that I met is Wayan (60), a farmer who had to go back from the city life to
his family’s farm when he was young because the death of his father. He preferred the
modern agricultural practices because to him, it is easier and simpler. “I think conventional
farming methods are easier, I don’t have to do complicated things such as making the
fertilisers… I can just buy fertilisers, seeds, pesticides in the nearby store and directly use
them on the field”66. He also trusts that the government is always trying to give the best for
the wellbeing of its citizen, “The extension agents have good education in agriculture, they
know a lot. They taught us how to increase our productivity and how to deal with the
pests… in the past we were ok with our traditional practices, but it’s different, there were
less pests, almost no pests. But since the late 70s, pests are starting to attack our fields, and
then the government helped us with pesticides and even gave us money to cover the

64
Ibid, 12-03-2013
65
Ibid, 12-03-2013
66
Wayan, interview on 12-31-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

57
damage caused by the pests. I cannot imagine if I have to deal with that many pests without
pesticides, maybe my farm will not be there anymore”67.

When I raised the health issues that can be caused by the chemicals, Wayan doesn’t believe
that it is harmful, due to his trust for the government and his personal experience. He said
that there is no way that the government would let their farmers use something that can
endanger their lives, “because it would mean that the government is killing its own farmers,
no I don’t believe it, they taught us a better way of farming because they care about us and
want us to produce more, because in the end they also need us to feed the people… so I
believe that as long as I follow the instructions, I will be fine. I have been using chemicals
since the 70s, and look at me now, I am old, but no health complaints”68. Regarding religious
matters, he also doesn’t think that modern agriculture practices are harmful nor breaking
any of religion rules. “I don’t think my farming method break any rules. Yes I killed many
living being with pesticides; but that is an act of self-defence because they are attacking my
field, I am protecting my plants and my family who are depending on the yields; and of
course I never forget to do the ceremonies as suggested in our religion”69. The other
farmers that I interviewed were also in the same boat with Wayan on this matter, they
never had any thought of breaking any norms, as for them, if they break any religious rules
and norms, the subak would have warned them.

Putu Hadi (38) is another farmer who is in favour of agricultural modernization. Before
becoming a farmer, he worked in the tourism field since the age of 17. When he was 32
years old, his father’s health condition got worse, so Putu had to go back to his home village
and started farming. He started farming without any practical farming experiences; however
his working experiences gave him the network to market his products. This network
provides him with information of the market dynamics so he can always sell his product to
the restaurant or hotel that he used to work at. His perceptions towards agricultural
modernization are somewhat similar with Wayan and Nyoman, but he is more aware of the
market situation. He told me that despite the emerging trend of going organic, conventional
agriculture suits him best; not only because he is new to farming, but also because he thinks
that it is more convenient and less complicated.

These farmers did not deny that conventional farming practices have some negative impact
to the environment. However, they don’t see it as their problem, and they believe that the
government will deal with it. “Everything has negative and positive sides; maybe the
negative side of conventional farming is that it is not environmentally friendly. But I am sure
the government is aware about this, and they will give us new directions if it really is

67
Ibid, 12-31-2013
68
Wayan, interview on 12-31-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
69
Ibid, 12-31-2013

58
dangerous. But so far, the government is still supporting us with chemicals and seeds; it
means it is still safe”70.

These farmers are also in favour of conventional farming due to more friendly market
settings. “To market conventional products is not as hard as marketing organic products. I
know that organic products have a good price, but the markets are limited, and very hard to
penetrate; not to mention all the certification procedures and costs. While for conventional
products, we can basically sell them anywhere”71. Based on their story, even though the
current booming program from the government is Simantri, the support to conventional
farming practices is still widely intact “the government regularly gives subsidy and aid in
form of seeds and fertilisers, conventional farming methods are well known nowadays, it is
easier to access the information about it than to learn organic farming”. The only difference
is that this kind of program is far from the media cover, there are no banners or billboards
on the streets that show the benefits of conventional farming; not like the THK or Simantri
which are always in one of the advertised programs of government.

Subak indirectly influences their perspective; because despite the internal rules, norms, and
external factors (such as government policies and programs), subak gives freedom for
farmers in managing their own farm. However, they put their trust in the subak leader; they
see their subak leader as an example. The rules in their subak do not guide the farming
styles of farmers into a certain path; instead, the common practice is to follow the trend,
not to be left behind or to be labelled as a ‘backward’ farmer. “When the subak leader
adopts new technology and he managed to show us the results, then everybody will follow
him, not because he told us to, but just because everybody wants to be a successful
farmer… and of course, I also have no reason not to do what they do… because if I don’t,
then I will be left behind… not only mentally but also in terms of my production level, I
would not be able to compete”72. Therefore, there is a social pressure that guided the
farmers in managing their farm.

These farmers are well aware that currently in Bali there are emerging initiatives and
encouragements to engage in organic practices which are more environmentally friendly.
They are also aware that the motives behind the movements are mostly based on
environmental sustainability. However, going back to the traditions and re-learning the
ancestral knowledge of farming in their opinion, doesn’t make any sense since they think
that they are living in the present era, not in the past. They argue that the current situation
is different from the past, so it is impossible to apply what used to work in the past to the
current or future settings. This argument however, is based on a conventional view of
‘modern’, as if it is always better than traditional; and they have no idea that these
traditional practices are starting to become the new ‘modern’ farming practices.

70
Nyoman Rudita, interview on 12-03-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
71
Putu Hadi, interview on 12-23-2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
72
Ibid, 12-23-2013

59
For these actors, modern agricultural practices are their new fundament of the ‘ideal’ way
of farming. However, their perspectives seem to be biased by the generalized information
and stereotypes. For instance, IMS had no idea that farmers in Buahan Kaja village decided
to stop using pesticides since the late 1980s, which shows that farmers also used their
agency in rejecting modern farming practices. There are gaps of communication between
the policy makers and the farmers. There are also actors who have different perspective
than those I described above. The following sub-section will describe the perspective of
those who are against agricultural modernization approaches.

4.2. The Cons – Modern approaches do not fit us!

All those problems which came along with Green Revolution have generated reactions from
different elements of society in Balinese agriculture. The environmental impact which
started to show up has attracted the government to put some attention in encouraging
environmental friendly agricultural practices “The Indonesian government has also begun to
embrace organic production, at least in theory. The Department of Agriculture has begun
researching and conducting field trials of organic methods and in 2009 the governor of Bali
announced funding of Rp.8 billion to ‘raise awareness’ of organic methods” (MacRae 2011
pp. 76).

Today, most of the critical perspectives towards the agricultural modernisation in Bali are
based on environmental sustainability issues. The environmental degradation caused by
conventional agricultural practices has become the focus of the government since the past
years; while for the farmers in Buahan Kaja village, this issue has been airing since the late
1980s. Not only the government and farmers, but also NGOs are starting to raise their voice
against the ‘destructive’ practices of conventional agriculture and get involved in promoting
organic methods. Here I would like to dive into the perspectives of actors who consider that
agricultural modernization is not the way to deal with current Balinese agricultural
problems.

Ketut Karyada, the head of Dissemination Department of BPTP was giving his critical point of
view towards agricultural modernization approaches in Bali. He studied Agricultural
Technology for his bachelor, and he went to James Cook University, Australia to get his
master’s degree in Farming System. He has always had critical thoughts about some of the
agricultural modernization approaches since the first couple of years of his involvement in
its dissemination process. However, until the last several years, he was forced to hold these
thoughts. In the mid-2000s, since the government of Bali started to promote organic
practices, he has more freedom in expressing his long-held thoughts and even to put them
in practice through government’s programs such as Simantri.

He started criticizing agricultural modernization’s impact on the socio-cultural aspect of

Balinese farmers: “they were used to be hard working farmers, but since the Bimas
programs got disseminated, everything is mass produced, like seeds, fertilisers, pesticides,
farmers can just get it easily on the shop now, and in every village there must be an agro-

60
input store”73. This, in his opinion has also affected the farmers’ ability to critically think and
be on their own foot “our farmers used to know what they do, and find their own way in
dealing with their agricultural problems; but now they tend to wait for instructions or aid
from the government”74. He mentioned the stagnant economic condition of farmers as an
example of their inability to be independent; “The problem is, they are not used to do
accountancy in their farm, so when they started buying farming materials, they did not
count it as production costs, all they think is production level and what they gain from
selling their products; the revenue, not profit”. According to him, since then, farming is
more related to the prestige of having an occupation aside of being the source of livelihood
“when I told some of my farmers that their farm is having negative profit, and then I asked
them why they keep doing this? They told me it’s because they are farmer, so they feel the
responsibility to farm. And most of these farmers are earning income from side jobs as
construction worker, owning a shop, and the others are dependant to their children who are
working in the cities”.

He also argued that agricultural modernization poses threats to Balinese agriculture through
its top-down mass dissemination process without taking the natural condition of the area
into account. “During the dissemination, in whole Indonesia farmers were obliged to apply
chemicals fertilisers in a same dose, same amount of the combination of N, P, and K for
example… while if we really look on the field, even in Bali, different region with different
altitudes and other natural characteristics have different soil type; which means those soils
have different needs of elements… this has of course degraded the balance of the soil”.
Aside of that, the (wetlands) irrigation system is also believed to worsen the environment
degradation caused by conventional farming methods; because the farmers are using same
irrigation channels, so those who are in the lower area will utilise water that are
contaminated by the farmers in uphill. “The chemicals are used in the upstream area where
the source of water located, then the chemicals will go with the water to other areas. So
actually, the uphill farmers are poisoning their brothers in the lower areas”75.

He mentioned that modern agriculture practices have made the soil to be in its saturation
point, where the application of chemicals will no longer improve the productivity, but it is
needed to maintain the production; and he believes that to do so farmers will need to apply
more and more dosage of chemicals. “In the 2000s, we started to realise that to improve
the productivity nowadays is very difficult… we had to multiply the amount of inputs, to
increase the production for less than a ton; so it is not feasible. Multiplying the amount of
inputs will not only increase the production costs, but also it will increase the environmental
damage”76. The environmental damage that is caused by the chemicals used in conventional

73
Ketut Karyada, interview on 01-29-2014 in Denpasar, Bali
74
Ketut Karyada, interview on 01-29-2014 in Denpasar, Bali
75
Ketut Karyada, interview on 01-29-2014 in Denpasar, Bali
76
Ibid, 01-29-2014

61
farming is, in the end, also affecting the health condition of the farmers who are exposed to
it.

Thus, he also highlighted health problems of farmers as a result of long-term constant

exposure to the chemicals they are using in their farm. “People started to notice that our
food must be contaminated, we are contaminated by chemicals… for evidence, after we
asked doctors to do general check up on farmers, even their hands contain pesticides, can
you imagine how contaminated their bodies are”77. According to him, the farmers are
actually aware of this since the 1980s, especially for those who are living in the highlands
such as in Bedugul area and Buahan Kaja Village.

This story was confirmed by Sunarka (53), an extension agent who is also an influential
farmer in Buahan Kaja. Regular medical check-up was part of the government program at
that time, so as an extension agent he had to take blood sample from farmers to be tested
at the nearest laboratory. “In my village, there were many farmers who got poisoned, it was
1985… I was the one who brought them to doctor for medical check-ups, and the doctor
said that their blood is contaminated, that is why many of them got sick”78. Since then, even
though he is working as extension agent, he ‘silently’ initiated a movement to stop the
pesticides application in his village; and since the late 1980s all the farmers in his village
stopped using pesticides. His effort in promoting non-pesticides move was not easy; but
being both the only extension agent and a subak leader at that time gave him the versatility
he needed to initiate the movement.

He argued that the massive environmental damage from the chemicals started in the 80s
when the government issued the program of pests’ extermination. “The government did not
take nature into account, at that time, we had to spray our field once in two weeks, some
even did it once a week, even if there were no pests; it lasted for several years, and that’s
when the ecosystem got destroyed”79. The environmental damage was worsened by the
mono-crop planting method, which according to him, disturbed the balance of the
ecosystem. The farm biodiversity got disturbed so that some natural predators had to leave
the farm; which then leads to the increased population of animals in the lower food chain
that are consuming the plants as their food, the pests. He also highlighted the soil condition
which is exhausted due to long term exposure to the chemical fertilisers; he argued that if
the current situations continue, farming is only going to be harder in the future. Thus, he
believes that conventional farming has to change into more environmental friendly
practices to be more sustainable.

In his experience, agricultural practices nowadays are not only making farming more costly
through the externalization of inputs, but also by the externalization of labour force; thus it
is harder to make profits. He mentioned that it used to be cheaper in the past to hire labour

77
Ibid, 01-29-2014
78
Sunarka, interview on 01-12-2014 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali
79
Ibid, 01-12-2014

62
from Java, but now since the Javanese know that Balinese are short on labours, the
Javanese set higher standards for their salary. “In the past, we paid Rp.400 for each
harvested Kg of grains, now its Rp.600… so even if I am lucky enough to get 6.5 tonnes per
hectare (average is 5.5 tonnes), which means we can get around Rp.24 million per harvest (4
months), we have to spend around Rp.4 million only for harvesting cost; not to mention
other activities and inputs’ costs. In the end after all the calculation, I can get roughly Rp.1
million per month with conventional farming”80. This situation however, changed since he
shifted to organic practice, which according to him has been giving him more advantages
from lower inputs’ costs, higher selling price, and also several side benefits such as being
self-sufficient through e.g. biogas and side products from multi-crops farming
(horticultures)81. However, most of the farmers in Gianyar have no information about the
benefits of this practice which can give them a better income (not in term of money) and
also healthier for their own health and environment.

According to him, most of the farmers in his village were reluctant to use modern
agriculture practices due to their fundamentalist behaviour. He argues that there is always a
relation between their practices and their beliefs, and the presence of modern agricultural
practices has not only damaged the relationship between human and nature through its
negative environmental effects, but also the relationship among farmers by enhancing their
greed, and has lead them to unhealthy competitive behaviour.

“We believe that all God creations has its own function, everything. We believe that God
created living beings as brothers, the eldest brother is the plant, second brother is
animal, and we, human are the youngest one. We have to respect and love our brothers,
that is why here we have tumpak wariga ceremony which is held every 210 days, where
we thank God for creating the plants by nurturing and giving love to plants; and also
tumpak kandang, for animals, same reasons. Everything has function, has its own role in
the universe. That is why we’re not supposed to be greedy, we have to act in our
limitations, we can use our brothers and other resources, but not exploiting it, we use
them within their capacities, just like they use others.” – Sunarka

According to Sunarka, the degradation of morality and culture is also enhanced by

agricultural modernization. It is noticeable in the way that most of the farmers now don’t
hesitate in practicing conventional farming methods which are harmful to the environment.
“If the farmers really think about it, what they are doing now is being disrespectful towards
the God, towards, nature, and towards other people. It means that pawongan, palemahan,
and parahyangan are being ignored, they don’t care anymore about it”82. I can see that

80
Sunarka, interview on 01-12-2014 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali
81
More details in later chapter of the thesis
82
Sunarka, interview on 01-12-2014 in Buahan Kaja, Gianyar, Bali

63
Sunarka is trying to apply the philosophy of Tri Hita Karana in his daily life including farming
practice. However, what I encountered in the field is that not many farmers are aware of
this propagated philosophy.

The other actors who are influential in Balinese agriculture since the early 2000s are the
NGOs; who have been conducting initiatives in order to try to solve modern problems, or at
least trying to minimize the damage. These initiatives and movements are mostly in line
with ‘going back to nature’, to find a way out of the current desperate situation. One of
their solutions is going back to self-sufficient, sustainable and environmental friendly
agricultural practices, which used to be the practices of traditional farmers. I managed to
have a small discussion with Ibu Kartini, a senior lecturer of Udayana University who is also a
farmer and the director of Bali Organic Association; and Sayu, an experienced permaculture
trainer from IDEP.

Sayu is the one of IDEP members. She is an experienced permaculture trainer who travelled
around Indonesia to conduct the permaculture methods. She was born and raised in a
farmer’s family, where she got her unpleasant experience with the chemical. She got
poisoned by pesticides in 2001, and had to be treated in the ICU of Gianyar Hospital for one
week; since then, she is devoted to sustainable agricultural practices. She started to get
involved in permaculture training in 2002 and since then, she has been experimenting to
find an ‘ideal’ method of farming according to permaculture philosophy which, according to
her, is in line with Balinese traditional agricultural philosophy.

She argues that it is very possible to apply traditional farming practices in the current era.
Regarding to pest control, she gave the example of how people in her village used to do it
before the Bimas program got disseminated “in the past, whenever we had a pests problem,
we did a ceremony and then after that the pest were gone. For example, to deal with rats
we have ‘ngaben tikus’ where we caught some rats, and then we burned the bodies in a
ceremony… In my village all the Subak members used to do that”83. This story is also
confirmed by several other farmers that I met in Bali. Apparently Balinese were so attached
to their beliefs even before the propagation of Tri Hita Karana, there were even ceremonies
to deal with agriculture related problems such as pests. This, however, contradict the
statement of several farmers who claimed that pests problem didn’t exist before the Bimas
program got disseminated.

Aside of environmental issues that have been the base of most arguments of the other
actors who are not in favour of agricultural modernization, Sayu has another opinion of how
the modern agriculture package influenced the quality of the product. She believes that
hybrid varieties that are treated with chemicals have less quality in term of nutrition and
taste. “It’s normal if organic products have better nutrition and taste compared to the highly
industrialized conventional products. Because the process goes naturally, plants take what

83
Sayu, interview on 01-29-2014 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

64
they need and not ‘what we think’ they need, and it affects the quality of the product. Some
of the organic local variety products can even be stored for a long time. Such as my
grandparents who used to store the potatoes for 5 years or rice for 10 years and more. You
can see it’s not possible with conventional agriculture products”84.

She also mentioned the role of corporations in modernizing the farms as a way to keep their
markets. According to her, some agriculture input companies such as Syngenta and Pupuk
Kaltim (national fertilizer company) are actively making ‘requests’ to the Dinas to introduce
their products to the farmers in government’s programs so the farmers will continuously use
their products. “The request by one company that goes to Dinas, and then Dinas go to the
Subak and then they say ‘ok, you must plant these kind of seeds, you must use these kind of
fertilizers’”85. According to her, this chain is really flexible and it also works in the line of the
current Bali Organic movement of government, where a fertiliser company (pupuk kaltim)
provides the organic fertilisers. So in the end, it still is restricting the room for manoeuvre of
farmers in producing their own manure. This means that the externalisation of inputs will
still be intact and some farmers will not be able to be fully autonomous in their input
procurement.

Kartini, from BOA, is more concerned about the degradation of cultural and moral aspects of
the government and the subak, aside of the environmental threats. She argues that the
agricultural modernization projects that are conducted by external institutions have created
a ‘desire’ not only in the farmer’s level, but especially at the government and subak leaders’
level. “Farmers became more passive, waiting to be fed and governments and most NGOs
are expecting any opportunities to get profits from the projects; because they considered
the projects as sources of their side-income, where they get extra money through
corruption”86. She said that now in most areas of Gianyar, the adat (tradition) is diminishing,
and everything is controlled by the government which is again very vulnerable of corruption.

Due to this situation, the role of the subak as a ‘vanguard’ in filtering external technology is
deteriorating. Some subaks are more controlled by the government through their policies
and programs “the problem with Subak now, is that farmers have to ask permission to the
subak if they want to plant different kind of varieties other than what usually other farmers
in the subak plant. So the subak regulates that. But then subak gets donation from the
government, and that’s why they don’t want to make something bad against the
government. So then they will not give this kind of permission to farmers who are looking
suspicious, in the sense that their act would jeopardize government’s programs”. This
phenomenon is an open secret in Bali, most of the farmers are aware but will not talk about
it. Traditional institutions are not the only element that was impacted by the agricultural
modernization processes, Kartini argued that the most important aspect of cultural

84
Sayu, interview on 01-29-2014 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
85
Ibid, 01-29-2014
86
Ni Luh Kartini (Bali Organic Association), interview on 11-12-2013 in Udayana University, Denpasar, Bali

65
degradation is how the socio-environmental aspect that used to be maintained by the
farmers through their farming philosophy is being degraded. “By the time the agricultural
modernization took place, the orientation shifted to industry and the people started to
leave their traditions, the goal is to improve the productivity, thus intensification is the
priority. Then, people started to neglect Mother Nature; people attached less respect and
values to their nature, which of course in the long term, destroyed their own cultures and
values”87.

Agricultural modernization has not only brought technical changes, but also changes of
practices and culture. In Bali, people used to do ceremonies and make offerings before and
during certain farming activities, and this somehow maintained farmers’ relation with their
nature. Believing in what most of us think as superstition has made Balinese to pay more
respect to their nature; thus, affecting their agricultural practice to be more
environmentally friendly. However, now most of the ceremonies are being left and ignored;
there are some ceremonies, but the essence of ceremonies itself is mostly gone. “People
already abandoned the socio-cultural values… individualism is everywhere, even subak
often having internal conflicts, subak is not just about controlling water, but also about
social relations, cultural relations. But now it is degraded… a lot of subak leaders sold their
rice fields or turned them into villas…”88

Although Kartini is mostly working as an academician, while Ade and Sayu are focusing their
work in the NGO, they shared the same concerns about the actual condition and the future
of agriculture, its society and the environment. They believe that the conventional
agriculture is going too far and, a change of path is needed to make things better. IDEP and
BOA are basically having same perspectives toward agricultural modernization; they are
concerned with the social and environmental elements that are being threatened by
agricultural modernization process. They shared the same visions that Balinese ancestral
wisdom can contribute to the knowledge of organic farming practices. That is why in most
of their arguments they often used the terms of (re)discovering ancestor’s practices which
link agriculture to religion and culture, to have a deeper connection with nature.

These local cultural values are things that should not ever be separated regardless in which
area agriculture is being practiced. “Because there is ‘culture’ in the word ‘agriculture’, that
is why most of our cultures are based on our relationship with nature; as an agrarian
country, tradition should be the key to our agriculture”89. Yet, agricultural modernization
has introduced new practices of how farmers should manage their farms without taking into
account their localities, nearly wiping out the traditional practices and cultures.

87
Ibid, 11-12-2013
88
Sayu, interview on 01-29-2014 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
89
Ni Luh Kartini (Bali Organic Association), interview on 11-12-2013 in Udayana University, Denpasar, Bali

66
4.3. Conclusions
The contestations of agricultural modernization in the case of Gianyar surfaced from the
two sided perspectives that both come from personal experience of actors who are
connected and framed in different settings. Both of these perspectives, however, are mostly
focused on certain elements without taking other elements into account (e.g. productivity
and economy over culture, environmental and social, and vice versa). Those who are in
favour of modern agriculture practices chose the production and economic aspect; while
those who are against agricultural modernization approaches base their arguments on
culture, environmental, and social elements.

Actors who are in favour of agricultural modernization approaches have the tendency to be
pessimistic toward alternative agriculture practices by thinking that it is only another way to
fulfil the desires of tourists. This thought, however, is also influenced by the lack of trust
they have toward the government who are currently putting their efforts in promoting
sustainable agriculture practices through Simantri program. But interestingly, they also
show that their pro-behaviour toward the agricultural modernization is due to the trust that
they put in the government. These contradicting reasons show the presence of plural
images of government in their head. This dualism is presumably based on the comparison
of government under two different leaderships: the first one is the New Order era which,
although authoritarian and corrupt, managed to made real changes in the field through
more structured and clear programs; and second, the ever changing governments in the
reformation era, which are less involved in the field than the previous one, together with
the publicly transparent corrupt behaviour creating an untrustworthy image.

The pro agricultural modernization actors’ cynical perspectives toward the efforts to shift to
organic farming are based on the distrust in organic practice’s ability to fit in the current
modernized era; the perspectives are associated with its excessive shifting process both
administratively and practically, uncertainty about markets, farmers’ lack of knowledge of
organic practice, and most of all, farmers’ ‘addiction’ to the convenience of conventional
farming (e.g. easy access to inputs, govt.’s aid). This means that the structure has put them
in their ‘comfort’ zone which indirectly restricts the farmers’ ability to be autonomous.

The externalization of inputs also created new demands for knowledge (i.e. of how to
appropriately use the inputs in order to reach optimum productivity) which can only be
provided by external institutions such as the government. However, in the current situation,
shifting to organic practices also requires external knowledge since most of the farmers
have already replaced their traditional practices with conventional farming. Moreover, the
average age of farmers is dominated by the generation who have been practicing
conventional agriculture practice for decades and it is difficult for them to go through the
process of change.

As van Dijk & van der Ploeg (1995) state “locality is not considered as a resource for local-
specific practices anymore, the focus is on global parameters: market trends, newest

67
technologies, agricultural policies – rules and subsidies” (van Dijk & van der Ploeg, 1995, pp.
VII-XIII). I found this statement fits well with the perception of actors who are in favour of
agricultural modernization (esp. the dinas representative).

The approaches of those who are against agricultural modernization mostly depart from
their sense of belonging for their nature, culture, and tradition. They felt that their nature
and culture are being threatened by agricultural modernization processes; thus they leaned
towards alternative ideas of farming as their solution. The propagation of THK and the Ajeg
Bali movement might have influenced their perspective by enhancing their sense of
Balinese, but actually, most of them have been having these thoughts before THK become
as famous as today. However, they tend to forget that agricultural modernization is not only
negative, but that there are some positive sides such as mechanization which is indeed
helpful in dealing with labour problems.

Subaks as the gates of change are made part of a new control mechanism through programs
and policies which include the reward system. As a result, the subaks are competing against
each other to be the best in the eye of government; which means, those who manage to
implement government’s programs the best, get more rewards in term of funding,
programs, and also the prestige of being labelled as the best subak; restricting their ability
to be critical toward government’s programs. In the end, it depends on the mentality of the
subak leaders who can become catalysts of transformation.

The presence of tourism also has its impact to the perception of the actors in the
governments. Grounded by the promotion of Bali’s ‘uniqueness’ as a part of promoting
Bali’s sustainable tourism development, the government encourages environmentally
friendly agricultural practices especially in Ubud area which is known to be the spiritual-
health rejuvenating destination which provides healthy organic food and enhanced
connection with the spiritual through nature; this creates markets for healthy organic
products. Being a ‘unique’ touristic spot, made many of former tourists decided to move in
bringing their ideas and disseminate them through NGOs, which then influenced and
facilitated the farmers in shifting to organic practices. Most of the sustainable farmers are
related to NGOs and under the Simantri program of government. Both government and
NGO provided access to materials, knowledge, and even markets that are needed by the
farmers to support their organic practices.

In this case, both perspectives are not only raised by their own consciousness, but are also
strongly supported by the structures where they practice their farming. In the farmer’s level,
both perspectives, supported by the structures lead the farmers to practice different ways
of farming which will be described in the next chapter of this thesis.

68
CHAPTER V: FARMING STYLES (The Heterogeneity of Farming Styles in Gianyar, Bali)

After describing the structural dimensions of Balinese agriculture and actors’ perspectives
toward agricultural modernization in Gianyar, Bali, in this chapter I illustrate the farming
styles that are emerging among the respondents, who hold different opinions. This chapter
shows that different farmers’ perspectives toward agricultural modernization combined
with their structures are, in the end, leading to a variety of farming styles in the farmers’
level. This chapter, then, completes the adapted macro-micro linkage analysis which
describes the situation of the settings (macro), how it influences the farmers’ perspectives
toward the ‘ideal’ way of managing their farm which in the end lead them to choose
different styles of farming. However, this chapter not only covers the different farming
styles, but also farmers’ strategies in dealing with what they perceived as problems.

In differentiating the farming styles, I divided the two styles into those of the conventional
farmer and alternative farmer respectively. This characterization is based on the logic of
farming by van der Ploeg (2008), who distinguishes two logics. These two logics are: a) the
entrepreneurs logic, which covers those who are highly integrated with market and external
technology and knowledge (in this case, those who are pro toward agricultural
modernization and farming conventionally); and b) the peasants logic, which covers those
who are actively making efforts in distancing themselves from the agricultural inputs market
and focus on sustainability (in this case, those who are not in favour of agricultural
modernization). The interrelations of farming units vis-a-vis markets, technologies, and
institutions, and also the way that farmers value and interact with their nature are different
for conventional and alternative farmers.

As mentioned in the theoretical framework of this thesis, there are typologies that can help
to identify these strategies: broadening, deepening, and regrounding agriculture (van der
Ploeg & Roep, 2003). The authors describe broadening as developing activities that improve
the farm’s flow of income while constantly adapting to the changes of demands of goods
and services –e.g. diversifying farm production, agro-tourism related activities. Deepening
means increasing value added of farm products while responding to new societal demands
by taking up non-farm activities such as processing and marketing –e.g. developing short
food supply chains by holding weekly farmers’ market, developing products that target
certain market. Regrounding means developing farm resource patterns mostly by valuing
local resources in order to increase farm autonomy and reduce expenditures –e.g.
producing own compost and rearranging the ecosystem as part of pests control activities
which both reduce the costs of external inputs.

In Gianyar, both conventional and alternative farmers are exercising these strategies in their
agriculture. Activity-wise, however, more strategies are found with those who are against
agricultural modernization (alternative farmer). From what I encountered in the field,
regrounding strategies are not found in the entrepreneurial logic based farming style

69
(conventional farmer). The following sections describe the manifestation of these strategies
in both conventional and alternative farming styles. The sections provide cases of farmers
(alternative and conventional) who are exercising their agency in interacting with their
structural aspects of agriculture. On the conventional side, there are Wayan and Putu who
have put their faith in conventional farming methods and are applying broadening and
deepening strategies in dealing with their agricultural ‘squeeze’. On the alternative side,
there are Hartono and Sunarka who believe that farming is not only about generating profit,
but also about working with nature. Thus, they practice an alternative way of farming, which
is more environmentally friendly. By doing this, they are able to gain more profit in the form
of cost reduction (through regrounding activities), extra value from ‘healthy’ products that
they produce and also from broadening and deepening strategies.

5.1. Farming Styles and Farmers’ Strategies

5.1.1. Conventional farmers

Conventional farmers’ perceptions of farming are filled with new rationalities brought by
the ‘experts’ through agricultural modernization projects. These farmers are highly
dependent of markets, buy all their agricultural inputs from external sources, mostly from
the nearby agriculture input stores or got it for free from government’s programmes
(usually seeds and fertilizers). In terms of farming technologies and knowledge, they chose
to be highly dependent of the government (e.g. dinas, penyuluh-extension agent) reducing
their creativity and ability to cope with certain situations (i.e. if there is a scarcity in inputs,
they usually report it to the extension agent and rely on them instead of actively trying to
find a solution).

The main agricultural practices of conventional farmers in the rice cycle, although more
simple, it costs more than the alternative style. This is due to the compulsory use chemicals
inputs that famers are not able to produce. It started with land preparation, followed by
watering the land until it has enough humidity. The next step is to apply base fertilizers, and
then seeds are planted. The differences lie in the next step, when fertilizers and pesticides
(usually herbicides due to the proliferation of weeds at this stage) are being applied. This
activity is being conducted once in 2 weeks (sometimes in a week, depends on the pests
intensity) until the harvesting period (for 4 months). Some farmers rent tractors (if
available) from the subak to plough their land, and the others (mostly small farmers) do it
manually by themselves helped by paid labour (usually from Java). Farming is chemical
intensive, and farmers realised that their soil is saturated and highly dependent on the
artificial fertilisers so that the objective of applying chemicals is no longer to improve
production, but to be able to produce and maintain the production level.

They realised that conventional farming requires expenses which keep increasing with rising
input prices without being balanced by an improving selling price. The causes are ranged
from the growing agricultural inputs’ price to the declining interest in agriculture related

70
works among the young generation, which leads to labour shortage. This is one of what they
perceived as squeezes to their agriculture, and thus farmers came up with strategies for
generating more income and keep the farming feasible, and as profitable as possible. In
doing this, Wayan and Putu came up with different strategies ranging from pluri-activity
(having more than one income generating activity) to maximization of products’ value
(through post-harvest management, targeting premium market such as hotels and
supermarkets).

Wayan. The first farmer is Wayan (60), a farmer who had to go back from the city life to his
family’s farm when he was young because the death of his father. He has 0.5 Ha of lands in
total, divided into two parts: 0.25 Ha of rice fields and 0.25 Ha of dry lands where he grows
vegetables. His rice field is located quite close to the centre of Ubud, where villas and hotels
are proliferating, and replacing agricultural lands. Many investors and rich outsiders seek
possibilities to own a piece of land in this area, and some of them are even willing to pay
prices that are far above the normal price (some areas in Ubud reached ten times the
normal price), leaving most of the farmers in a dilemmatic situation of the temptation to sell
their lands and receive massive capital or to keep the most crucial inheritance of their
family.

Pak Wayan was one of these farmers in Ubud. He witnessed many cases in his region where
farmers sold their lands and ended up working in those same lands for the new owners
because they did not do very good investments with the money that they got from selling
the lands. This has made many farmers not only losing their lands, but also shifting their
social status of a farmer/land owner to a hired labourer. This condition, in the end stripped
them from the involvement in the subak. He told me that before, with the not so good
situation of his farm and economy, it was really hard not to sell his lands. The only reason
that prevented him from selling his lands was the fear of losing identity and a place that his
family can call home. “I am not interested, if we lose our land is like losing our identity, our
children and grandchildren will have no place to go back, where will they go? Or when
people asked where are they from, and then it’s hard to answer”90.

90
Wayan, interview on 31 December 2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali

71
However, he managed to come into a
solution when an investor from Jakarta
bought land next to his land and turned it
into villas. In order to save some lands and to
keep the attractions, some villa and hotel
owners rent the surrounding rice fields so
that the farmers don’t sell their lands, which
provide sceneries for the villas/hotels.
Through this deal, the farm is not only giving Figure 13: Wayan's multi-functioning farm
him passive income from the rent, but also
he is able to keep his land ownership.

His strategy to maximize the profit is also applied in the input procurement and selling his
product which is being done in a collective way through his subak. For input procurement,
the subak usually bought inputs in bulk so they can get cheaper price, then the inputs got
disseminated to the members. While for collective selling, the subak collects the products
from the members and selling them in a bulk instead of per individual (some subaks made
an arrangement with hotels or supermarket to fulfil their demands). However, the subak is
not always able to facilitate this activity. This role of the subak has been stopped working
since the last couple of years due to internal conflict91. So Wayan and his friends have to
arrange the similar activity themselves. By buying and selling collectively he and other
farmers can have a better price and minimise the risk of being manipulated by input
retailers.

Putu. The other farmer with an entrepreneurial logic is Putu Hadi, a young farmer who
started his business in agriculture after he had to go back to his farm due to the loss of his
father. Putu Hadi (38) worked in the tourism field since the age of 17. When he was 32 years
old, his father’s health condition got worse, so Putu had to go back to his home village and
started farming. Unlike most of Balinese farmers, he only grows vegetables in his 0.5
hectares of land.

He started farming without any practical farming experiences; however his working
experiences gave him the network to market his products. This network provides him with
information of the market dynamics so he can always sell his product to the restaurant or
hotel that he used to work at. He utilises his land to grow vegetables in order to meet the
demands of warungs (small resto) and hotels that he used to work for; and to get fast
money flow (since some vegetables have short planting period). By planting vegetables, he

91
According to his story, the conflict in his subak was caused by the presence of more than two strong
individuals who want to ‘accommodate’ the input procurements and products selling; targeting the
advantages of buying and selling in bulk.

72
can also apply a multi-cropping system in order to differentiate the products which
according to him, has lower risks (especially in marketing) than planting one commodity.

Although his farm size is small, Putu makes sure that his products can penetrate certain
market chain such as hotels which requires products with certain standards of quality.
Although he is able to do this due to his connections that he got from his previous job
experience, he doesn’t just sell his vegetables right after the harvest. Instead, he takes up
post farming activities such as grading, cleaning, and sometimes packaging if he
(although seldom) has orders from a local supermarket. Through these activities, he
managed to add more value to his products and sell it with higher price. To maximize the
profit, he mostly used family based labour in the value adding activities so that he
doesn’t have to pay for it. This strategy, however, is only possible due to his past working
experience in the tourism so that he managed to get to know insiders in the hotels.
Although the network helps him to penetrate the market, the continuity is still not
reassuring due to informal arrangements between them.

During the conventional farming cycle, there are low labour input periods during cultivation
where hardly any work is required apart from monitoring crop health and water level. The
farmers mostly used these periods working in other sectors to generate side income which
is not only used to pay for the basic necessities (including ceremonies), but also the
increasing farming expenses. This pluri-activity is common among the farmers (e.g. Putu
works as an ojeg (motorcycle taxi) driver, and Wayan works as a parking guy and souvenir
seller). This is also possible due to their farming style which relies on ‘instant’ modern
technologies.

In these cases, the wider conditions including the government (through farming
intensification program), subak (collective procurement and selling, tractor renting) and
tourism (markets, land renting) play a big role in providing opportunities for the farmers to
be creative in gaining more income both from farming and non-farming activities. The
entrepreneurs rely heavily on the market and ‘external’ actors for input procurements,
technologies and knowledge. Focusing on market integration makes the entrepreneurs very
vulnerable to macro changes (e.g. price and stocks volatility for inputs). Van der Ploeg
(2008) argues that one of characteristics of the entrepreneurs is that they think that they
should be able to constantly adapt to the external indicators (e.g. markets and policies).
However, in this case, although the part of government programmes is to make Bali organic,
the entrepreneurs choose to stick with the conventional way of farming. However, this is
possible due to the presence of the structure (although not intensely promoted) which is
supporting the conventional way of farming aside of another structure which is not only
supporting but also actively promoting organic farming.

73
5.1.2. Alternative farmers
The other side of the Balinese agricultural development path highlights the alternative style
of farming, which is based on the peasant logic. Aside of generating profit, this style also
focuses on the localities, self-sufficiency (esp. in agricultural input procurement) and
sustainable farming practices. In this category, I found two different types of farmer who
have different opinions about going organic. The first one is Hartono, who is trying his best
to limit his dependency on the agricultural input market and external technologies
(including inputs and machineries); the second is Sunarka, who, although disagreeing with
modern agricultural practices, does not deny that it is required to cope with the modern
era. Although they have similar point of view in going against conventional farming, which
relies heavily on artificial inputs and external technologies, both Sunarka and Hartono came
up with different farming strategies.

Hartono. Hartono (35) is a young farmer who is fiercely against modernization. He has
approximately 2 hectares of land located only 2-3 Km away from the centre of Ubud, and
specialised in vegetables. In Hartono’s point of view, modernity has brought nothing but
misery to society especially the farming community. Dependency to external sources of
technologies and markets is considered as sign of weakness, and conventional farming is
seen as heavy ecological and farmers’ social and economic exploitation. This is to say that
conventional way of farming is not only damaging the environment, but also it treats
farmers as markets for input producers, exploiting them. His ideal way of farming is based
not only on how much income the farm can generate, but also sustainability, self-sufficiency
and socio-environmental aspects; production and reproduction of agricultural resources
processes are the key in alternative farming method.

He knows that conventional farming is not sustainable and is harmful to the environment,
the farmers, and the consumers. He is a self-taught farmer who never stops learning and
experimenting in finding his best way of farming without using any external technologies.
He is so sceptical towards dependency on external technologies and knowledge that he
even rarely agreed to be involved in any government or NGOs programs (even those which
are promoting organic practices). He really likes to be on his own in managing his farms, and
it is not easy to gain his trust in arranging cooperation or even to just work for him. That is
why he only has his brothers and best friends, who are helping him in taking care of his
farms. The reasons of his reluctance towards externalities are his disappointment with and
distrusts of the corrupt government and he even said that “government and NGOs, all they
want is money; I don’t believe that they truly want to help farmers, it is just because in
order to get money they have to create programs in the name of helping farmers. That is
why I heard a lot where they left the farmers once they’re finished with the programs, then
farmers don’t know what to do, then the programs don’t do a lot for the farmers, or even
made things worse in the end... but in their report, the program is a success, so that they

74
can get another funding”92. The other reason would be his pride of being able to be a
successful farmer by self-developing and learning; even though he only got a junior high
school degree and never attended any farming courses. I could see his pride in the way he
talked about the incompetence of the government and experts, as a proof that he does not
need any education provided by them to be this successful. However, he was able to go
through all the process of this business due to his strong capital in the beginning that
supported him in the rough times. He is astute in creating the business plan, so that he
managed to grow from small farmer to be as big as now.

His relationship with the subak is only limited to administrative matters and retribution
payment. It is an example of a farmer who can actually farm on his own way, putting less
concern on any possible social pressure. He argues that “as long as I don’t break any subak’s
rules, paying administrative fees, and participating in or contributing to obligatory subak’s
events, just for formalities, then there are no problems”93.

The mobilization of resources is formed into a cyclic pattern where the by-products of his
farm are being recycled (mostly) into compost. Pest control was being
done by several techniques: he plants pest repellent plants (e.g.
sunflowers) around the farm, he put fly traps
made from recycled water bottles, and he also
creates his own pest repellent liquid made
from locally available herbal ingredients which
is sprayed twice a week. Some of the products
are turned into seeds for the next cycle. By
doing these activities, he is manifesting the
regrounding agriculture strategy to cut his
dependency of input market which in the end
reduced the input cost significantly. However,
his farming style is very labour intensive so that he has to dedicate all his time to work in the
farm with his brothers and friends. Family based labour also cuts the expense of his farm,
although of course he has to share some of the profits with his brothers and friends.

His main consumers are expatriates and tourists around Ubud area
who are willing to pay more for his organic products. The
manifestation of the deepening strategy can be seen in the way that
he markets his products directly to the consumer, cutting down the
market chain in order to absorb all the profits only for his farm
enterprise. In doing this, he utilises the internet as promoting media
where consumers can see what kind of products he is selling with
the prices, then he provides his phone number for those who want

92
Hartono, interview on 14 December 2013 in Ubud, Gianyar, Bali
93
Ibid

75
to make an order. Consumers can also directly come to his farm and just point out which
products they want and either harvest the products by themselves or ask him to pick it up.

He also uses his farm as an educational centre where

people (mostly expatriates) can learn how to farm
organically for free. In practice, this activity turns out to be
an effective way of promoting his farm products because
those who come to his farm and see his way of farming are
mostly impressed and start talking about it to their friends.
Those people then recommend their friends who are
looking for fresh organic products to come to Hartono’s
farm. By having a direct contact with his consumers, he mostly grows products based on the
market’s demands. Consumers are allowed to pre-order certain types of vegetables in
certain quantities (as long as it doesn’t exceed his capacity).

Although he was able to make his farm enterprise running very well (sustainable, mostly
self-sufficient and profitable) with the current condition, he was still not satisfied and still
wanted to expand his farm. He then rented another 2 hectares of lands in an area
approximately 3 Km away from his owned lands. He also doesn’t stop doing experiments in
finding ways to continuously improve his farm to be more efficient. This shows that even for
an ‘extreme’ peasant farmer such as him, monetary gain is still a strong motive of farming.

Sunarka. Is a middle aged farmer-extension agent-former subak leader living in Buahan Kaja
village of Gianyar, Bali. When I entered his house, I saw a very well planned settings of the
house with a garden of spices just on his terrace, a well decorated rice storage building in
the middle yard, further in the back just behind his garage there are pig and duck poultries,
behind that there is a 40 acres of dry lands where he grows fruits, vegetables, and medicine
plants, and finally behind that lie 2 hectares of rice fields. All of these settings are mainly
made to fulfil his household necessities, except for the overproduction of rice, ducks and
pigs which are being sold on the market. Approximately 2 Km from his house, he has
another rice field of around 4 hectares in size divided into 4 parts and a couple of cows.
Sunarka came from a rich family, so that he could inherit a large amount of land. This
condition allows him to shift to organic farming gradually, starting from a small plot of land.
By doing this, he is able to minimize the risks and cover costs during the shifting period (low
production, pests attack, etc.). Aside of that, his main job as a government officer also gives
him a steady income in covering his daily needs.

He and his brother have always been pioneers in applying external technologies brought by
programs both from government and NGOs. This is possible due to his job as an extension
agent that not only made him always be the first one to know of the programs that are
planned, but also gave him a frontline position whenever there are NGOs proposing
programs. This position has also made him vulnerable to any external expectations and
agendas that usually came in the name of development. However, this position also allows

76
him to experience and observe the changes that are going not only in the level of his own
farm, his village, but also in other areas in the island and even in Java. All these experiences
made him critical towards external knowledge; he knows that not all external knowledge
brought positive impacts to the farmers and especially the environment. He then started to
stop using pesticides and chemical fertilisers gradually, started from his farm which is
located around his house. He knows well that farming conventionally can boost and
maintain the production level but that it’s not good for the environment and creates
dependency on technologies (materials and knowledge) and market which restricts the
freedom of farming.

Sunarka is a respected farmer in the village of Buahan Kaja, many of other farmers in the
village see him as an example. This public trust didn’t fall from the sky just like that; instead
he had to go through a phase where he nearly got excluded by other farmers due to his
hard-headed and ‘unusual’ behaviour of going against the conventional farming. However,
he did not share his ideas by ‘teaching’ or telling others what is right or wrong, because he
believes that by doing so, it will make things worse. Instead, he keeps doing what he thinks
is right until the other farmers see the difference.

“At first it was hard; nobody believes that chemicals are bad, especially in the early
stages where my production level fells while the others were blooming. It lasted for
several years till they see and realised it... it started when the neighbours noticed that
whenever they passed my farms, they didn’t smell the chemicals, they saw more
animals and plants are growing... at first they thought the biodiversity as pests, but then
they saw my production is fine, my farm is more safe and beautiful with all the birds,
butterflies, and other animals that were considered as pests but actually they bring
balance to the farm ecosystem, then they started to follow, asked for advices... and the
words spread and now people are starting to reduce the chemical fertilisers... it’s a
really slow process, but I believe we will get there”.

Sunarka is a little bit different from Hartono. Although he is not in favour of agricultural
modernization, he still thinks that reaching the ideal way of farming requires modern
artefacts and technologies. He states that modernization is part of life and we should not
totally go against it, instead, we have to find the way to optimize the positives and minimize
the negative impacts of agricultural modernization. Thus, in his farming style he does not
deny his dependency on the market and modern agricultural tools such as tractors, grain
dryer and other machineries that were not present in pre-bimas era. Different from
Hartono, in his mind modernity is necessary in coping with the continuously evolving eras
which of course come with some side effects.

According to him, one of farmers’ responsibilities is to find a way to reduce the negative
impacts while utilising the positives to their favour, optimizing the modernity. Disconnection

77
from the market is impossible, because he realised that “we are also a market, we buy
things from people; where should I sell my products? Where can I get agricultural tools and
materials? And of course basic necessities, the simplest example is salt, we don’t produce
salt in the village, so we have to buy it from somewhere else”94. However, Sunarka agrees
that the dependency on the market has to be limited not only to cut farming expenses, but
also to keep having the freedom. As an example, he explained the situation when he had to
deal with market instability “when I was still buying fertiliser from the market, whenever
there was a shortage, the price rose and it is always scarce, so hard to get, I almost could
not farm… but now I produce almost everything that I need to farm, so I don’t have to be
bothered again by the market situation, at least for inputs”. That is why he is always trying
to make his farm enterprise (and also his household) self-sufficient and sustainable.

Sunarka is trying to mix the modern farming tools with the traditional farming methods that
he learned from his father. He rented a tractor from the subak so that he can efficiently
(money and time wise) prepare his land before planting period. Mixing both farming styles
does not mean that he uses chemicals, but he believes that some conventional technologies
(e.g. machineries and seeds) are still required to keep the balance. He is still using hybrid
seeds for rice because if he uses the original Bali paddy variety, it takes too long to grow and
he will not be able to fulfil market demands. Since different market channels require
different varieties of rice, it will be impossible to only produce one variety annually.

He produces his own manure from his cattle (cows and pigs), and similar with Hartono, he
also has his own methods of pest management which is mostly based on his beliefs on the
palemahan concept of THK. He believes that human should not interfere too much in
shaping nature, so that it will not disturb the balance. He told me that his goal now is to
restore the farm’s ecosystem to how it used to be, so that the nature will have its own
balance and there will be no pests anymore. “Most pests are those in the lower part of the
food chain, so if they are proliferating, it means there are not enough predators.” With this
way of thinking, he started to shape his farm ecosystem to be more balanced by building
nests for snakes and even wild cats. “I believe if I can create the balance of their population,
then everything will be natural, because animals are different from humans. They won’t
stock up food or make profits. They only take what they need to survive, and usually it’s just
less than 10-15% of what my farm can produce, so it’s nothing.” This attitude is also
important for those who are willing to practice organic farming, that farmers need to realise
that it is difficult to get 100% of their products. Sunarka sees this as part of the balance,
sharing the food with other beings because we also need them in order to be sustainable
(and seen as good deeds in their beliefs).

He produced two kinds of manure for his field: dry manure and wet manure. The wet
manure is produced by processing the cows’ waste, which is turned into compost by mixing
them with other organic wastes and processed by using worms. The dry manure is produced

94
Sunarka, interview on 1 December 2013 in Gianyar, Bali

78
from the pigs’ waste. It is one of the by-products from the biogas process. The waste from
the pigs goes into a biogas processing unit, where it gets fermented and the gas produced
by the process is used for the household’s needs. The biogas processing technologies that
he got from a government program, produced more than just biogas and dry manure, based
on his experiments, he was able to also utilise the biogas processing unit to create a pest
trap. By simply putting infected/rotten fruits in the fermentation well, it attracts flies which
are then knocked unconscious by the gas and fell into the water.

Through this mechanism, Sunarka is able to get multiple advantages from his pig-farm: the
main product are the pigs, that he sells to a butchery; the second one is a sustainable source
of dry manure; the third one is a sustainable source of renewable energy (biogas); and the
last one, is a sustainable pest management tool (the trap for fruit flies) which is although
minimal but according to him its quite effective in controlling the fruit flies population and
negating the damage done. By installing the biogas processing unit, breeding his own pigs,
and producing the fodder from his farm (rice/grain waste); this activity became sustainable
and has low production costs.

Pest Trap
(for fruit flies)

Market

Dry manure

Figure 14: Sunarka's cattle waste management

The other strategy of Sunarka in order to maximize the profit is by using his network in
gaining technologies, market access, and even aid from government and non-government
institutions. Sunarka is quite famous in the organic farming community in Bali, due to his
success stories and innovative behaviour. Combined with his occupation as government
official, this provides him with access to programs from NGOs and government, because he
is known as a credible farmer. Some programs provided him access to penetrate premium
market channels (e.g. hotels, supermarkets) which then required him to plant certain types

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of products. This means that he is also taking the market demands into account before he
decides what type of rice or vegetables to plant.

Sunarka and Hartono showed a different process practicing their alternative style of
farming. In Hartono’s case, it was started as a reaction to the failure of the regime in guiding
and fulfilling the desires of farmers; and then it was simultaneously re-emerging within the
peasant style of farming as a way to further explores sustainable methods through field
experiments and observations. On the other hand, aside of doing experiments, Sunarka is
actively looking for new ideas from external sources; and continuously making new
networks which are supporting him.

Sunarka does not close himself off from external sources of technologies and knowledge, he
is very open, even actively looks for government and NGOs programs. However, he is not
always in line with those programs either, he uses his capacity to filter any external
technologies and knowledge and only take those which suit his ideas. Negotiations before
he agreed to cooperate with any programs are common, and some can even lead to
disputes. For example, when I came to VECO (an NGO based in Belgium which has a branch
in Bali) which one of the duties is to assist farmers in organic certification; Imam who was a
vice director of VECO at that time told me that in VECO’s eyes, Sunarka is a failure to their
project due to his reluctancy in agreeing the certification terms at that time (2010/11).
However, in Sunarka’s view at that time, he thought that certification is another way for the
government to make money, and the process and terms are hard to achieve, so he thought
that it will not bring him any advantages. However, now he realises that, no matter what,
the certification process is necessary in order to penetrate some markets, thus, now some
of his products are certified.

The beauty and safety of the farms are very important both for Sunarka and Hartono, and
this can be gained by not using any chemicals. They are still trying to make their farm more
beautiful by arranging pest repelling plants and maintaining the biodiversity of the farm
ecosystem. They stressed that the feeling of ‘safe’ whenever they enter the farm without
have to smell the foul scent of chemicals or being afraid of getting poisoned through any
skin contact with the soil, is very important so that they can have the motivation in working
and showing their love to their farm.

5.2. Conclusions
The manifestation of farming strategies in dealing with the problems, although limited, are
found in the conventional farming style in Gianyar. The Broadening strategy (developing
activities that improve the farm’s flow of income while constantly adapting to the changes
of demands of goods and services) can be seen in the way Wayan rented his farm so that it
has multiple functions and he is able to generate side income from activities other than
farming; in Putu’s case, the broadening strategy involves his wits in reading and adapting to
market demands for certain products through a network that he has from his past working
experience. This activity also involves a deepening strategy (increasing value added of farm

80
products while responding to new societal demands by taking up non-farm activities) where
Putu does some value added activity such as grading, cleaning, and (sometimes) packaging
depending on the market demands. Broadening can also be seen in the case where the farm
has multiple functions as both active and passive income generator, both by renting it to a
villa owner or turning it into an agro-tourism spot in Ubud area; where the farmers
cooperate with tourist agencies and made their farm as one of the destination for touristic
adventure packages.

In the cases of the alternative farmers, all the three strategies of broadening, deepening,
and regrounding are present. The Broadening strategy can be seen in the way both farmers
are producing organic products that target certain market channel which provides premium
prices. Broadening can also be noticed in the way Hartono turned his farm into an agro-
tourism spot and also on-farm educational centre. This activity might be based on his will to
disseminate the positives of organic farming, but in the practice, this activity also acts as the
way of Hartono in advertising his farm so he that he got more consumers. A Deepening
strategy is for sure present in the alternative way of farming in the form of value added
creation and extra services (e.g. delivery service, selling products directly to consumers).
Regrounding strategy (developing farm resource patterns mostly by valuing local resources
in order to increase farm autonomy and reduce expenditures) manifests itself in their
sustainable practices, where the production and reproduction of agricultural inputs is being
done by using locally available resources.

Aside from farming strategies, both conventional and alternative farmers are attached to
different networks of institutions. However, in this case, these attachments are not being
put in a top-down way, instead, the farmers chose who to cooperate with, who to trust,
based on their own perceptions and experiences. The conventional farmers mostly chose to
be close with the government that is still supporting farming intensification. It is not that
they didn’t have any choice, but as described in the fourth chapter of this thesis, they have
their own way to perceive and process any external information that came to their farm.
The example would be when the Balinese government and NGOs are mostly focused in
promoting organic agriculture practices, conventional farmers chose to continue farming
conventionally. While for the alternative farmers in this case, there are Hartono who chose
to work on his own and closing himself from any externalities (except markets to sell his
products to); and Sunarka who is actively engaged in government and NGO programs.
However, Sunarka also uses his own insight in filtering the coming ideas.

The alternative farmers might seem to gain their knowledge from their own experiments
and personal experience. But, mostly, they are triggered and supported by the market
(especially created by tourism) and the hovering discourse of organic lifestyle, which in the
end got related and enhanced by the increasingly propagated concept of THK. Alternative
farmers value the environment more than entrepreneurs. This realisation came both from
inside their mind (e.g. personal experience and field observations) and was also affected by

81
external sources of information (e.g. the propagation of THK, or even the floating discourse
of healthy lifestyle of tourists – market demands).

While the conventional farmers are mostly receivers who are highly dependent on external
sources for technologies and knowledge, the alternative farmers are actively doing
experiments and finding their own methods of farming which suit them best. In the
alternative farmers’ cases, the source of knowledge is also different: Hartono is a self-taught
farmer who consciously chose to not get involved in any courses given by ‘experts’.
However, he doesn’t relate his ideas to any beliefs, “it is just as simple as respecting and
working with the nature”; and Sunarka is combining the knowledge of his ancestors, his
beliefs, and those which came from ‘experts’ (e.g. biogas processing method and
infrastructure which he got from HIVOS and the government).

Alternative farmers in this case are, however, limited to those who have big capital. For
example, Hartono did not start farming empty handed, but with enough capital to start
organic farming until he managed to gain profit and expand his business step by step. As for
Sunarka, he already had big capital (most of his land was gained as inheritance) before
shifting to organic farming. Furthermore, Sunarka shifted to organic farming by
experimenting in small plots of land before applying it one step at a time until it reached his
whole land. Thus, in this case, the capital aspect is very important for farmers so that they
can move more freely without being hindered by capital which most of the times got
intermingled with daily family needs.

In addition, tourism plays an important role in providing market opportunities (esp. for
alternative farmers), and also indirectly supporting alternative farmers through the
discourse of healthy living and ‘back to nature’. The structure, historical events and culture
in Balinese agriculture have not only shaped the room for manoeuvre for farmers, but are
also influencing the farmers in shaping their way of exercising their agency in reacting to
their settings. In this case, farmers who have different farming styles exercised their agency
in reacting to their structures in a different way, creating their own room for manoeuvre. It
is clear that farmers who are engaged in both farming styles had the chance to choose a
different path. However, their perspectives, which are based not only on past experiences
but also on a personal point of view toward those experiences, gave them this fundamental
way of thinking. This way of thinking became the base of their vision towards their past,
present, and future, and in the end, made them to choose a certain way of farming, which is
supported by different sets of structures.

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 CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

Conclusions
The manifestations of agricultural modernization in the Balinese context are Janus-faced,
and are characterized by the existence of different (and often contradictory) perspectives
towards it. The top-down style of agricultural development had been weakened by the time
that the New Order regime fell in the late 1990s. Since the fall of Soeharto and subsequent
political-administrative reforms, many initiatives are proliferating. It means that freedom
has indeed (to some extent) become enhanced. Currently, in Bali the government is actively
promoting organic farming alongside conventional farming methods. Even though the
proposed way of farming might be different from the earlier Green Revolution packages, the
method of dissemination is more or less the same as before: farmers are expected to follow
the proposed prescriptions. However, this provides farmers with more options than before,
and they can actually decide on their own which proposed prescriptions they are willing to
follow.

One of the main factors that play an important role in determining the heterogeneity of
farming styles is, then, the different sets of structures which are propagating, offering and
supporting different styles of farming. In this study I have shown that farmers got caught
between the presence and interaction between of the ‘old’ structure, which supports the
conventional style of farming, and the ‘new’ structure, which support the alternative
(organic) style of farming. Both structures support both farming styles, thus giving farmers
more options to base their farming practices on. However, the risks in shifting to organic
farming are still too many and too big to handle for the small farmers with their limited
capital. This can be seen in the Sunarka and Hartono cases. Both started their organic
farming with enough capital so that they could survive through the difficult times of the
early shifting period. Moreover, they are both supported by advantages that most of the
farmers in Gianyar do not possess. Even though there are programmes from the
government that provide assistance for farmers in shifting to organic farming, these are
susceptible to corruption at many levels, from the level of policy implementation and
administration, to the level of farmer itself. Thus, it is not uncommon to see failed (for
example, Simantri) programs where failure was caused by the fact that forms of support did
not reach the beneficiaries.95 That is why most of the small farmers are sceptical about this
program; it would be too much risk to gamble.

The market mechanism in Balinese agriculture provides tempting opportunities for organic
products due to the presence of tourism. However, these niche markets are not easy to
penetrate. Some require proper certification which is not easy for farmers who don’t have
enough scale to cover the costs. There are markets for organic product which don’t require

95
For example: farmers often told me that there were supposed to be free cattle to support organic practices
in Simantri villages, but the cattle are not present in some of the villages

83
certification, however, the markets are too small and have already been dominated by
powerful suppliers. For non-organic product, markets are widely available, especially
enhanced by the presence of tourism combined with the culture of Balinese Hinduism which
provides constant needs of agriculture products for ceremonial purpose.

Aside from market mechanisms that undoubtedly have an influence on shaping the room
for manoeuvre, both state (e.g. dinas and BPTP) and non-state institutions (e.g. subak and
NGOs) play an important role. Additionally, there is the presence of tourism, which is of
great importance for Balinese society and its structural characteristics, since it is the most
economically contributing sector to the island. Tourism provides new economic
opportunities and contributes to Balinese agriculture, not only in form of a market but also
technology. The negative side of tourism, especially those related to environmental issues,
created the need for improvement; that is, a more sustainable and environmentally friendly
way of living. Thus, it encourages the government to ‘sell’ Bali Organic as one of the ways to
enhance the tourism sector in an environmentally sustainable way; which is in the end, also
contributes to the promotion of organic farming at the farmers level. Thus, I would like to
highlight the remark of van der Ploeg & Hebinck (1997 pp. 219) who argue that
“Heterogeneity is grounded in the construction and reproduction of a highly differentiated
set of micro-macro linkages amongst other things”. This statement resonates in the cases
that I encountered during my fieldwork: different farmers who practice different styles of
farming are embedded both in different set of structures, and/or also in the same/similar
structures where farmers made different choices.

Agricultural modernization is contested at the level of policy makers, project implementers

and farmers, due to the different perspectives towards the question which path is the best
for developing agriculture. Policy makers who are in favour of agricultural modernization
tend to bring up the macro level considerations of agriculture such as feeding the
population and monetary based farmers’ livelihood improvement which are all based on
increasing farm productivity through farming intensification and modern agricultural
practices. The conventional farmers came up with their distrust toward the organic methods
and the institutions who are trying to promote it; and also the difficulties in shifting towards
it. On the other hand, those who are not in favour of agricultural modernization talk about
socio-environmental issues, sustainable practices and farmers’ autonomy. In this thesis, it
can be seen that both conventional and alternative farmers use understandable ways of
reasoning in choosing their own farming styles. Each farmer has different life experiences
and capabilities to process and perceive their past, present, and future. All these combined
create a fundament in their way of thinking that made them stick to or change into what
they believe to be their ‘ideal’ way of farming.

In the context of Balinese agriculture, institutions, market, technologies, tourism, and

cultures pose both hindrances and opportunities for the emergence of different farming
styles (Figure 15). Farmers actually have a variety of options for choosing to either practice

84
conventional farming or for going organic, since both of the proposed prescriptions are
supported and also restricted by the structural elements. However, in this case, we can see
that farmers are using their agency in creating their own room for manoeuvre by choosing
which structures they want to be attached to. This agency is not only influenced by the ideas
that came from outside (e.g. institutions and market), but also their life experience, field
observations and even their beliefs. From my observation I can argue that farmers have
different goals of and values toward their farms, thus, it also influence the ways they

Market

Contestation
Tourism among farmers

The state and

institutions

Culture Different
farming style

Figure 15: macro-micro linkages of Gianyar’s agriculture

interact with their nature. Conventional farmers mostly see farming only as a profit
generating activities and their passion lies in fulfilling their materialistic needs and
expanding their business. That is not to say that the conventional farmers have no spiritual
needs, but rather that they do not relate these to their farming activities. Conversely,
alternative farmers have true passions in the farming itself, in valuing their nature. They do
not only see farming as a job, but also as the way they are working together with their
nature. They are taking factors such as autonomy, environmental sustainability, health, and
even the farm’s aesthetics into account. This, however, is also a way to fulfil their desires of
loving their activities, their nature, and their freedom.

There are opportunities and hindrances that are posed by the structures; farmers with
different logics chose to be attached to different structures, preferring the one which
supports their way of farming. Farmers’ agency is also shaped by their structures and
experience. Balinese agricultural practices have become shaped by earlier imposition of
these structures. Processes of deactivation due to declining interest in farming and rapid
agricultural to non-agricultural land transformation, the declining water level, volatile
agriculture inputs supplies and prices, and the constantly increasing living costs have
created the ‘squeeze’ that is continuously hampering the farmers. However, both
conventional and alternative farmers are trying to survive and are constantly adapting
through their own strategies in facing the ‘squeeze’. Although farmers came up with their

85
own strategies, these strategies are mostly influenced, inspired, supported and/or guided by
the structure that the farmers chose to (consciously or not) be attached to.

Discussion
Methodologically, I learned a lot of invaluable lessons from the beginning till the end of the
process of writing this thesis. To live and observe the dynamics ideas, covering not only
monetary desires but also those that include personal experience, observations and spiritual
matters, which are manifested through different styles of farming, was a great opportunity
for me to understand the ever important context. The first time I set my feet on the island
of paradise, I got charmed in no time, got carried away by its amazing constellation of daily
life and philosophy of the people, especially the farmers. This gave me some hindrance in
my objective to observe phenomena from a neutral perspective, and made me take things
for granted. However, as the process went on, I was pulled back to the position of a
researcher so that I can observe developments in Balinese agriculture through a broader
and clearer lens. The farmers taught me many lessons which had been learned the hard way
by them; the guidance of my supervisor took me to a different level of observing and
analysing phenomena; and finally, the articles which I used for my thesis taught me that
farmers are knowledgeable actors, and that there are approaches to development which
might work better than the usual top-down way that has become so deeply embedded in
Indonesian and Balinese agricultural policies.

The mainstream ideas that are hovering among the development actors are still that the
farmers are always seen as passive, unknowledgeable actors who always need to be helped
by the experts in order to improve their welfare. Exogenous development has always been
the focus in most experts’ projects brought by agricultural modernization processes. The
problem with exogenous development is that it has an end, a goal, it is limited by time and
external agendas, not to mention the well-known corruption as part of our culture and
socio-political system. The example would be the government effort to promote organic
farming for rice in subak Wengaya Betan which, although considered successful at the
production level but less so in marketing its produce96 (MacRae 2011), in the end met its
failure. One by one the key members of the project were resigning, causing further trusts
issues. Furthermore, farmers that I interviewed during the fieldwork have pointed out the
failures of experts’ projects in developing Balinese agriculture due to its inability to optimise
the ever complex constellation. It doesn’t mean that it has to be stopped, but exogenous
development policies and programs need to be improved and adjusted to local processes
and structures.

Thus, the last remark that I would like to make in this thesis concerns future research
opportunities. In the end, it is not only about going organic or conventional, but about
whether the development process is being carried exogenously or endogenously, and
whether the development actors have the synergy and sincere will to help the small
96
See MacRae 2011, Rice Farming in Bali: Organic Production and Marketing Challenges for further details.

86
farmers. From what I have seen during my fieldwork in Gianyar, modernizing agriculture is
not about promoting conventional agriculture anymore, but rather about promoting
sustainable farming practice. The government and NGOs in Bali are actively promoting
organic practices, even by strategically utilising (invented) Balinese beliefs in their
agricultural policies (e.g. the propagation of THK, and its ‘obligatory’ presence in the subak
agenda); and some farmers are actually reluctant and even sceptical toward it. This
heterogeneity is often only paid scant attention to, while it might be important for
researchers to identify the potentials of endogenous development process that might
contribute to formulating policies for future agriculture development.

87
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