Discover why Candikuning’s strawberries are ‘so sweet’

Many might cringe at the idea of using rabbit urine to fertilize strawberry plants and vegetable crops, but farmers in the Candikuning area near Bedugul resort, Tabanan, have discovered its multiple benefits.

Nyoman Suta, one of the farmers, said his crops “have grown healthily; the fruits are bigger and taste so sweet”.

Suta has been pouring rabbit urine as liquid fertilizer onto his 20-acre strawberry field for almost one year. This natural fertilizer is said to boost foliar and seed growth, increasing crop production.

“Deadly leaf bugs have savagely attacked fruit and vegetable plants, but my strawberries and vegetables are resistant to this pest because of bio-urine,” Suta said proudly.

The pest consumes a plant’s flowers and leaves., ruining harvests.

Suta added that only a few of the area’s 6,000 farmers have turned to bio-urine as fertilizer.

Using bio-urine fertilizers from human and animal urine is not strange to traditional farmers around the world. The practice reportedly dates back to ancient times.

Indian farmers use cow-urine to grow fruits and vegetables. In Finland, farmers use human urine to fertilize tomato and other fruit plants. Even the US space agency NASA developed hydroponic farming using urine-based fertilizer.

Experts say urine is a good source of nitrrogen and other minerals needed to fertilize soil, providing it is used correctly.

However, the rapid change of farming technology, government policies and demands for higher yields have forced farmers to use chemical-based fertilizers.

For more than 30 years farmers had used excessive chemical fertilizers, partially because of the New Order’s green revolution policies that began in the early 1970s. However, a growing number of farmers across Indonesia, including many in Bali, have started to blame huge environmental losses on the use of toxic fertilizer pollutants.

Udayana University’s School of Agriculture researchers earlier disclosed an alarming report on the condition of the island’s soil.

The report revealed that the excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides had badly damaged soil conditions at most of Bali’s agricultural sites. Soil, rivers and other water sources have been seriously polluted by chemical waste. “In many parts of the island, we no longer see worms and small animals that naturally fertilize the soil,” the report said.

Hidayah Bali Rural Agricultural Training Center coordinator Putu Wijana said his organization has gradually introduced bio-urine to local farmers over the last few years., while the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides “seems uncontrollable.”

The center introduced rabbit urine in Candikuning village because it is renown as one of the most prolific rabbit breeding sites in Bali.

“Farmers are able to apply an integrated farming system by raising rabbits and growing fruit and vegetable plants,” Wijana said.

Farmers may yield 100 kilograms of strawberries per day from 1 hectare of land. “They can also sell rabbits,” he said.

Bio-urine is cheap and easy to process compared to expensive and rare chemical fertilizers.

Bali Agriculture Office chief Made Suryawan said the farmers’ attempts to apply integrated organic farming was “in line with Bali’s efforts to develop Indonesia’s first clean and green province.”

The provincial administration has provided Rp 200 million in funds to every farmers group that develops organic farming.

But Wijana said many farmers were “too lazy” to process nature-based fertilizers.