Bali Experience

One of the most breathtaking natural spectacles in Bali is the sight of a rice field heavy with life. From the fields flooded with fresh, clear mountain water that mirrors the sky above, to the newly planted delicate lime green shoots, to the mature emerald stalks swaying in the breeze, often as tall as a human being, to the golden bronze beauty of the sheaves ready to be harvested, the cycle of rice cultivation shades the Balinese landscape with ever changing color.

Rice is the staple food of the Balinese. But such a simple statement hardly begins to describe the importance of this humble grain in Balinese culture. Rice is the staff of life and the stuff of ritual, a source of myth and a storehouse of wealth. Indeed, Balinese legend has it that when the god Siwa created the world he created first the mountains, then rice, and only then did he inhabit the world with people, fish, birds and animals.

To the average Balinese, a life without rice would be unthinkable. Stories are told of Balinese who go to work or study overseas lugging to the airport heavy suitcases stuffed with rice and the implements to cook it, terrified that they would go hungry in the lands of bread, potatoes and pasta. No matter how true these tales, it is certain that no Balinese would willingly go for long without this favorite food. For most Balinese, rice forms the bulk of their daily meals, providing essential carbohydrates, protein and vitamins. While meat, fish, eggs, soy products and vegetables also are important parts of the diet, they are considered more as side dishes, complementing the heaping main portions of the pearly grains.

To a Westerner brought up with instant white rice, the care the Balinese take to classify their rice and the joy they take in consuming it might be confusing. In Bali, there are many different kinds of rice, and a Balinese can taste minute differences between them that would most likely go unnoticed by a Western palate. Beras Bali is indigenous Balinese rice, grown in irrigated fields, with two crops possible per year. Beginning in the 1970s, the "green revolution" sponsored by the World Bank began to introduce new high yield, disease resistant varieties with shorter growing seasons, enabling Bali to turn from an importer of rice to an exporter of a substantial surplus. But despite the benefits of these new varieties to the farmer, most Balinese still prefer the taste of authentic, old style Balinese rice, claiming it has a superior flavor, consistency and color. Government civil servants, who are paid a portion of their wages in coupons exchangeable for the new rice, often sell their vouchers and buy themselves the more delicious, although more expensive, traditional variety. Besides Balinese rice and the new hybrids, Balinese also cultivate dry field rice, sticky rice, red rice and black rice, used to make the famous bubur injin, the delicious traditional delicacy of black rice cooked in coconut milk and spices.

Rice is not only valuable to the Balinese as a staple food, but also as the center around which much of social and religious life is organized. One of the most important traditional organizations in Bali is the subak, or irrigation cooperative. Because water must flow through many kilometers of rivers, streams, irrigation channels and rice terraces to reach the lowlands, coordination is vital to ensure that water resources are evenly distributed among farmers. Some 1,200 of these subak groups, consisting of around 200 people whose fields share the same water source each, exist in Bali today. Traditionally, these groups were responsible for organizing the allocation of water to irrigate members' fields, keeping the complex system of aqueducts and channels in good repair, and deciding on planting dates for the members of the cooperatives. And the subak's functions are not merely economic. One of their most important duties is to carry out the many rituals needed to ensure a successful harvest, and to maintain the temples devoted to Dewi Sri, the beloved Balinese goddess of rice. This communal system of irrigation and worship is believed by archaeologists to have begun over a thousand years ago, when the Balinese first began to sculpt rice fields out of the rich volcanic land to provide for their daily sustenance. As a testimony to the endurance of a traditional spirit of community and cooperation in Bali, the subak is indeed awe-inspiring. But more amazing still is the fact that such a traditional form of environmental management, worked out over centuries without calculators or computers or complex machinery, is still more effective than the best plans of modern science. Anthropologist Stephen Lansing, in a famous study of the subak system, demonstrated through the use of sophisticated computer programming that the traditional methods of the subak were indeed more efficient than anything the computer could devise.