T

he provincial administration’s program to transform Bali’s agriculture into an organic-based sector is facing critical obstacles, an official said on Monday.

Provincial Agriculture Agency head Made Putra Suryawan said that The Bali Organic 2013 program, which has been touted for years, did not target the application of organic farming systems in all agricultural lands throughout the island. His statement was in stark contrast to the popular belief that by 2013 all of the island’s agriculture practices would have been transformed in accordance with green and organic farming principles.

“We only expect that by 2013 we will have already seen products of organic farming being supplied to hotels and restaurants. By that time, organic products should have accounted for at least 25 to 40 percent of total agriculture production.”

At present, only about 25,000 hectares out of a total 81,908 hectares of farmland have been cultivated using organic methods. Moreover, the utilized methods are not 100 percent organic. The best term to describe the methods is semi-organic, which stresses efforts to reduce the use of chemical fertilizer and use greater quantities of organic fertilizer.

The 25,000 hectares consist of 15,000 hectares included in the Simantri integrated agriculture program initiated by the provincial administration, and 10,000 hectares included in the subsidized organic fertilizer program.

The Simantri program offers technical and financial assistance to farmers’ groups that are willing to implement a wide array of organic and green practices, from using non-chemical fertilizer to establishing bio-gas power plants.

Suryawan said it would take a long time to transform Bali into a totally organic island. Without any biotic or abiotic disturbances, including weather, it takes eight years for agricultural land to secure organic certification. “It takes a long time to neutralize the chemical contents in the land and it could take longer if there are biotic or abiotic disturbances,” he said.

The implementation of organic farming systems is carried out gradually to maintain a stable supply of agriculture products, especially rice as the main staple food.

Bali currently produces 870 tons of dried husked rice per year, a high level of production that makes the island one of few provinces in Indonesia with surplus rice production.

Suryawan warned that the transformation process of land from inorganic to organic-based would decrease the production capacity in the early phase because the soil needs to adjust to the new conditions. “We could not estimate how much the decrease would be because it would vary on every plot of land.”

He said rushed implementation of organic farming might result in stagnant conditions in rice production and could thereby threaten the island’s food security. “We should implement both organic and inorganic to ensure a secure food supply.”

He said the provincial administration’s efforts to transform Bali are ongoing by gradually increasing the use of organic fertilizer.

This year the administration allocated Rp 1 billion (US$113,000) of the available Rp 4 billion fertilizer subsidy for organic fertilizer and the remaining budget went to inorganic fertilizer. Starting next year, subsidies for inorganic fertilizer would begin being phased out.

The efforts in implementing organic farming include facilitating organic farming groups to be certified by independent institutions.