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Intensive farming brings rewards
Hundreds of farmers across Bali and other parts of Indonesia are yielding bumper rice harvests from minimal seed use thanks to a revolutionary planting method
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Hundreds of farmers across Bali and other parts of Indonesia are yielding bumper rice harvests from minimal seed use thanks to a revolutionary planting method.
The method allows for a 50 percent increase in harvest using just one 10th of the normal seed planted, virtually no chemical fertilizers and little water.
The System of Rice Intensification, or SRI, was first developed in Madagascar in the 1980s and has since been introduced to 36 nations across the globe, including major rice growers, China and Thailand.
Convincing local farmers that if they plant just five kilograms of seed over a hectare instead of the standard 50 kilograms of seed they will almost double their yield was hard work, say SRI adherents and trainers I Made Chakra, Made Warsa, Wayan Balik and Ketut Murjana.
Today across Bali, 32 subak, or water management organizations comprising hundreds of farmers, are applying SRI with an additional 40 farmers seeking training in the method.
"That's the problem with SRI -- it seems too good to be true. How can you plant just five to seven kilograms of rice instead of 50 kilograms and double the yield and have higher quality grains with fewer empty husks? But once farmers have tried the system they are convinced," said Warsa, who has been using SRI for the past four growing seasons and is now an SRI trainer.
A farmer measures the greater distance between single-seed planted SRI rice. (JP/J.B. Djwan)
In conventional rice planting, 15 seedlings are planted at 15 centimeter intervals into flooded fields. With SRI, just one seedling is planted each 30 centimeters into muddy fields using organic fertilizers instead of chemical fertilizers.
On of the SRI trainers, respected organic farmer I Made Chakra, said the greater distance between seedlings allowed for better airflow where the single seedlings were not competing for soil nutrients.
This allowed the seedlings to grow heavier grain heads with higher productivity.
Young SRI farmer and trainer Wayan Balik said when he first saw the system he was skeptical, but willing to test the method on a small plot of land while still farming rice conventionally on the bulk of his land.
"I was very nervous about trying the system. I could not afford for it to be a failure, but I felt I had to test it for myself. The neighboring farmers all said I was crazy and that made me even more nervous," he said.
"But once I saw the seedlings growing so well I was very happy and relieved. The farmers around me have not actually joined SRI, but I have noticed they now plant just three seedlings at 30 centimeters apart."
Balik now uses SRI across his entire farm and is keen to lease additional land to increase his crop, protecting Bali's farmlands in the process.
"What I see is a lot of young people don't want to take over the family farms. A friend of mine is too old to continue farming and his kids don't want to be farmers.
"I would like to lease their land. That would give us all an income and protect the land from being sold," said Balik.
Less rice is being produced annually on Bali, with more land sold and less available water for conventional rice farming.
Murjana, after seeing SRI in action, turned his entire crop over to the new system a year ago.
"I had seen SRI and I knew it worked. I had no fear applying this farming technique across all my rice fields. We (SRI farmers) are all going organic. We might as well, as chemical fertilizers are expensive and hard to find," Murjana said.
"With SRI, the grains are very healthy with few empty husks. I took 41 kilograms of rice to the miller and after milling I had 33 kilograms. That is a lot. You get much less milled rice if there are a lot of empty husks, which is what happens in conventional plantings."
With conventional rice production, almost 50 percent of the harvest weight is lost in the milling process. Under SRI, however, farmers lose just 25 percent of harvest weight during milling.
The rise in rice harvests along with massively reduced seed and fertilizer costs through SRI is allowing farmers the capital to expand their holdings and plant out more fields, generating further income and making rice farming more viable.
"SRI farming is viable and I don't need to sell my land, but can instead add to it. Farming is still very tough, but there is no way I would sell my land," said Warsa.
He said as farmers discover the benefits of SRI, it may help prevent the ongoing loss of arable lands to villas and hotels across Bali.
Other benefits of the system are that women and children readily learn the planting technique, according to Balik.
"This means that instead of having to employ outside help to plant, whole families work together in the rice fields, so money is saved there as well," said Balik.
Murjana agreed, adding there was less physical stress on the back with SRI, despite requiring greater work in planting and weeding the immature plants.
The greater workload is the only drawback to SRI seen by these farmers. But all agree the added work is well repaid in increased harvests, reduced fertilizer and seed costs and minimal water use.
"There is a message to the government in all this. The government needs to support farmers so their quality of life improves and they continue to grow the rice Indonesia needs," Balik said, pointing out that Indonesia has increased its annual import levels of rice, an issue hundreds of farmers across the archipelago believe needs to be seriously addressed.
