Tabanan to be maintained as Bali’s rice basket

Despite the fact that the agriculture sector contributes only 30 percent to the economy of Tabanan, the local administration aims to keep the regency as the rice basket of Bali.

I Made Gede Sukawijaya, head of Tabanan agriculture and food agency, said the regency had the potential to maintain itself as the island’s source of rice, not only because it had the biggest paddy field area, but also due to its robust productivity.

2009 data from the Central Statistics Agency showed that Bali has around 81,931 hectares of rice fields, where 22,465 hectares of this is located in Tabanan. There are 40,000 hectares of dry land in the regency.

In that year, Tabanan produced 227,270 tons, the highest contribution to 878,764 tons of production throughout Bali. The productivity level in the regency reached 5.6 tons per hectare.

Regency with the second highest production of rice in Bali is Gianyar with 141,578 tons and Badung at 118,218 tons.

Last year, Sukawijaya said, rice production in Tabanan increased by 5 to 10 percent, albeit at a lower quality due to the impacts of extreme weather with rainfall almost throughout the year.

“Our production increased in terms of quantity, but lowered in terms of quality due to bad weather.”

Land conversion also remains an issue in Tabanan, although it mostly occurred in less-productive land.

“Land conversion is unavoidable. It happens everywhere, considering that people need more land to build residential areas in line with the growing population. But in Tabanan, converted land was mostly less-productive.”

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Our production increased in terms of quantity, but lowered in terms of quality due to bad weather.

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The Tabanan administration also has its own strategy to develop the agricultural sector by combining it with tourism, he added, citing a paddy field in Jatiluwih that managed to attract foreign and local tourists.

The rice fields are cultivated using the traditional method of irrigation called subak. The regency has also applied an organic farming system.

— JP/Wasti Atmodjo