W

ayan Sadyo of the Gapoktan farmer’s collective in Blahbatuh was born to be a farmer.

There is a light in his eyes as he discusses the benefits of organic farming, of the farming methods his grandparents used.

“This year we will produce around 3 tons of organic fertilizer from the cattle. We have just had an order for one-and-a-half tons from Klungkung. It’s being sent to Nusa Penida for a banana farm,” says Sadyo as he points to the tomatoes, papaya, mangoes, chilies, fish and shrimp being grown alongside his village rice fields under the Government SIMANTRI integrated organic farming system.

Under the system, cattle become the backbone with their manure and urine harvested and used to enrich soils and protect against plant disease and pest infestation.

Recent convert to organic, integrated farming is subak head, I Nyoman Sucitra. Within just six months of changing his farming practices, the lifelong farmer says he is seeing results.

“My rice yield was down a little bit, but the quality of rice is far higher. But also I don’t have to pay the costs of fertilizer, so as a farmer I feel this is the right road and a road my children can follow. We can continue to pass down this land as it was passed to us,” says Sucitra of Bali’s green revolution that could protect farmers and save the tourist industry into the future.

—JP/Trisha Sertori