The Rice Terraces of Jatiluwih

Since 1969, with the so-called "Green Revolution", not always very pink, a more productive rice variety has been introduced throughout Indonesia, more resistant and growing faster, often offering the inhabitants an additional harvest in the year. But each advance has its price: so this variety of rice also needs more fertilizer and water, and worse, various and varied but always harmful pesticides. Pesticides are responsible, among other things, for the impoverishment or even destruction of the ecosystem, and in particular for the depopulation of frogs, toads and eels that until then populated the world of rice fields and other adjacent channels. In 1967, just arrived in business, the young dictator Suharto went so far as to forbid Balinese farmers to plant their traditional rice: rice development requires force, so to speak...
Secondly, agricultural industrialisation and rationalisation require that, if this famous "new rice" ultimately proves to be more economically profitable, it loses a lot of taste and nutritional quality. Sometimes called "miracle rice", whether it is good or bad, it will however allow the country to feed its inhabitants, which is not insignificant either! But in business, whether tourism or agriculture, profitability has become the key word of the main stakeholders. Abuses abound, as do pesticides that ruin farmers who are forced to produce more to survive. It is a well-known capitalist pirouette... In addition, focusing on modernity at all costs, the experts largely underestimated the effectiveness of the traditional subak system, for example for water management or insect control. Then, with the 1980s, the beginning of a notable lack of interest in subak against the backdrop of the rise of individualism and the incessant search for profitability. Gradually, however, some farmers replant traditional rice, but more often than not, it is agricultural workers (from Bali, but also from Java, Lombok, etc.) who come to replace the young local people who have left for the city or the beaches to target other lives. Since the 1990s, and especially after 1998, the subak have regained some of their nobility and, despite the desertion of the countryside, they are now recognized as an essential and legitimate part of Balinese cultural and natural heritage. One of the crucial problems today concerns the young Balinese who, anxious for some to return to the land, no longer have at all the knowledge or obviously the skills of their parents or grandparents...

Nowadays, 90% of Balinese rice production comes from this new rice, which is a little controversial but so profitable, and in times of sustainable crisis (with poverty constantly increasing despite supposed tourist revenues...), the population cannot afford to buy rice, traditional or old, more expensive but of better quality... This high standing rice (a stem that can reach 1.5 meters) and locally appreciated generally only allows to produce one annual crop. Thus, all Balinese rice farmers now live more and more from "derived" agricultural products: the multicoloured market gardens and even more so the gigantic modern chicken coops that occupy all the space in the landscape... A thinning however extends over this vast Balinese agricultural world: the organic fashion (organic, as we say here) is on the way to make more and more followers, consumers from elsewhere and producers from here, it is good for economic morale but prices also increase as a result.

As a result of dense and rapid urbanization, in the entire Denpasar area, only 37 subak remained in 2007, and more recently around Klungkung, an eastern region that is much less urbanized, subak are disappearing at high speed, according to the observations of a local Balinese friend. In an extensive study on subak, Nyoman Sutawan points out that the number of inhabitants in Bali is constantly increasing while at the same time the number of subak continues to fall, which is becoming increasingly worrying, particularly for the future of local agriculture. However, the recognized quality, including internationally, of subak, is not new, nor is it the sudden interest shown by Unesco and the Indonesian authorities, which are more or less economically interested in the potential tourist gains. In 1983, following a US mission to the United States (General Accounting Office of the United States), North American experts noted that the subak represented the most ingenious water management and use structures of all the ones they had visited during their study.

Degung Santikarma's testimony, published in the late Balinese cultural magazine Latitudes, traces a bygone era, when rice farming dictated the local economic and social order. It is not only the sweetness of life that disappears, as the author regrets, but also entire sections of Balinese heritage. This was before UNESCO became involved in the affairs of the island's farmers. In this text, Degung Santikarma already deplored that "the most beautiful rice fields cannot escape real estate developers. They are being converted into shopping malls, luxury hotels and golf courses, which are increasingly demanding more water, drying out rice fields and, ironically, destroying the landscapes that tourists come to admire. That's all said and done.
Led by a pekaseh, head of the hydraulic cooperative (subak), the structure that is being built around the subak includes dozens of local men, who meet regularly to resolve concerns about land, water, calendar, rituals too, since the cycle of ceremonies depends closely on rice cultivation. Each subak has its own temple and, while walking in the rice fields, you can easily see the small temples (called bedugul) that majestically throne at the end of each plot. Anchored in rural areas, the subak (and their leaders) have always known a certain autonomy, distrusting both the political universe and the new economic fields in the making... Today, many subak die of an artificial death that is not beautiful: they are, in order to survive, forced to regroup, not to mention the intrusion of pollution - plastic bags blocking irrigation canals, for example - which sometimes thwarts all the best agricultural calendars in the world... Degung Santikarma believes that, torn apart by transformations that often exceed them, Balinese must now choose: "to continue to sell off their land to the first tourist to come, or to maintain a millenary heritage of subtle water management, Bali's most sacred resource".
We observe that in the Jatiluwih and Wongayagede sector, some rice farmers continue to favour the cultivation of traditional rice, which is longer and whose plants are taller... some say that it is also better for photos, and in addition this rice looks like the rural scenes of the old Balinese or Western paintings that can be admired in museums: thus, tourism and the heritage that goes with it will be the saviors of good traditional rice? At the moment, due to an alarming demography and visitors who need to be well fed, Bali no longer even produces enough rice for its own consumption....

Since the end of June 2012, the subak have been internationally recognized, all within a Hindu-Balinese framework that can only reinforce the pride of the indigenous people. Indeed, UNESCO has definitively recognized and inscribed, according to official terminology, "the cultural landscapes of the province of Bali: the subak system as a manifestation of the philosophy of the Tri Hita Karana". For its part, UNESCO decided to date the origin of the subak to the 9th century, and the latter are precisely presented by the UN organization as "democratic and egalitarian agricultural practices that have enabled the Balinese to become the most prolific rice producers in the archipelago despite the fact that they have to feed a very dense population". It should be noted that, in addition to the famous rice terraces of Jatiluwih, the inscription also concerns the royal water palace of Pura Taman Ayun and, more generally, the philosophy underlying the subak, namely the Tri Hita Karana, whose thinking aims to harmonize the spiritual, human and natural worlds. It was therefore at the end of a hard 12-year battle that the Balinese subak were finally registered, with a validation made public in Saint Petersburg on 29 June 2012, on UNESCO's precious World Heritage List. What is exactly on the list is the Bali Cultural Subak Landscape (or BCSL, for those who are close to it), which consists of organizing traditional subak in close connection with local Balinese philosophy. The BCSL includes 14 different subak from the Penebel region (including the Jatiluwih site), the three mountain lakes (Bratan, Buyan and Tamblingan), as well as the following sites: Taman Ayun temple, Pekerisan river, Gunung Kawi temple, Mengening temple, Tirta Empul site and basins, Suluban three subak, and finally the famous Ulan Batur temple overlooking Lake Bratan. In total, these many sites cover an area of 7000 hectares. They are now joining forces in the name of heritage to become the very official Bali Cultural Subak Landscape (BCSL), listed in the UNESCO catalogue. The Indonesian press has reported this moment of regional and national glory well and, from Kompas to Bali Post, the tone is proud and optimistic: While nature is omnipresent and to be preserved, the articles also show that the number of visitors is already rising, as is the amount of tourism revenue to come... As for the Jakarta Post of 27 June 2012, on the eve of the apotheosis, it mentions an awareness-raising operation, if not an educational promotion, during which 200 students from all over Indonesia participated in an information programme, endorsed by UNESCO, on the history, place and functioning of the subak in Bali. But the bet was already won.

Sometimes, this kind of international recognition leads to strange initiatives: the village of Penebel (Tabanan region), near the Jatiluwih rice fields, has been selected for the Miss World 2013 competition. And, the Prefect of Tabanan is not afraid of ridicule when he says that the place has been chosen "because we are very much appreciated for our environment". Certainly, there is no doubt about it, but what does this have to do with the election of Miss World?

In an enlightening article, Stephen Lansing J., Yunus Arbi and Wiwik Dharmiasih analysed the entire history of this nomination, and the efforts of the Indonesian authorities, to be included on the famous World Heritage List. The authors conclude what Unesco will also remember, that is, that the ingenious subak system is a practical and functional expression and representation of the Balinese philosophy of the Tri Hita Karana. In this sense, this nomination and registration is welcome both for the indigenous people and for visitors from the Balinese countryside, who are keen to better understand this territory. The risk, and it is no less, consists in seeing - for some Balinese, Javanese or foreign predators - only fruitful business in a tourist setting behind this beautiful recognition of local know-how and a no less beautiful social and even political reality, characterized by the subak and the local philosophy that underlies them. That would be a real shame. And most importantly, damaging. At the moment, in early autumn 2012, official entrance tickets (15,000 rupiahs, or less than one and a half euros per person; the fare is expected to increase soon) are being issued to access the Jatiluwih site, and "tourism and heritage development" work is only just beginning. For what fate? It's hard to predict.

But it is legitimate to worry about a certain folklore not only of culture but also of local agriculture: to see this, all you have to do is go to Pujung, a locality north of Ubud, to admire (and tread) too famous but very pretty rice fields transformed into a tourist attraction, with its concrete paths and its shops that overflow onto nature, here well damaged. This brief escapade of Ubud, which is similar to a kind of dubious health walk, fully satisfies the Asian newlyweds who came to unite in the land of the gods or even hordes of Western tourists who did not wish to leave Bali without taking a quick jump into the green of the rice fields. The problem is that the situation is turning red, and if the rice field is a real star it has also become a simple showcase. This scenario is definitely not desirable for Jatiluwih. There is no evidence so far that UNESCO (with the local authorities in charge of heritage management) is really able to protect the site from such abuses, and from many others that may soon emerge....

Whether the modernity of tourism will prevail over Balinese philosophy and rice fields or whether, on the contrary, it is the culture-agriculture couple that will succeed, by its strength and tenacity, and we can only hope for the Balinese, in controlling the flow of money and arrivals that will flow. Cost as it may cost, or in a piecemeal way, it's still and always a hell of a water story. Normal, we are in Bali....

Franck Michel