Bali Organization of Farmers.

The Subak as an Organization of Farmers.

To many visitors the country side of Bali is very beautiful. Nearly everywhere the tourist goes he sees rice fields, from the beach where the waves break till very high in the mountains. The Balinese build rice fields as high as they can have the water to irrigate them. Even in the regions where there is no water the Balinese live from agriculture. On dry soil the plant corn, sweet potato, peanuts, beans, cassava and other plants that need not much water. In the dry plains people have coconut plantations and fruit trees and in the mountains people grow coffee and “gaga”, mountain rice. Bali has no tea or rubber plantation.

The dry North-East of Bali, at Bondalem, Tejakula, les and other village in the vicinity, is famous for its fruits, especially oranges tangerines and limes. Dry North Bali is known for its delicious mango and “Durian”, the stinking fruit liked very much by the Balinese but shunned by the foreigners. The coconut plantations are in North-East Bali where the soil is dry and sandy, good for growing coconuts. Copra, the raw material for soap and margarine is made of coconut.

In Bali the wet rice culture is most important. Only where water is is wet rice culture possible. The most important part of Bali for this culture is central Bali, comprising the counties Tabanan, Badung, Gianyar, Klungkung, and Bangli. All year round there is enough water here because of the presence of the four lakes laying in central Bali. Example Batur lake, the biggest lake in Bali, Bratan lake the second biggest and the smaller lakes Buyan and Tamblingan.

For centuries Bali has followed contour farming; that is farming that follows the contour of the land and hills. To keep the top soil on its place terracing is necessary. Because of his policy the terraced rice fields have artistically curved lines as dikes that enhance the beauty of the country side. It is especially beautiful when the fields are still flooded; the water on the fields forms mirrors where clouds in the sky and the coconut trees cast their reflex ions and the flooding water flows down from the highest terraces to the lower ones in this way forming hundreds of small waterfalls. The country side is also very beautiful when the rice is still young green.

Irrigating those rice fields is very complicated work. Yes it is very efficiently done by Subak. The Subak is the organizations of farmers of the rice field are that receives its water from one source. Because of this system there are thousands of Subak in Bali. One big dam can be shared by many Subak and the number of Subaks depends how large the water supply is. The Subak regulates the rice planting and the distribution of water needed by the rice fields. It sees to it that the canals, the ditches and the smaller ditches through which the water flows to the individual rice fields are in good shape, so that all the water flows to the fields and water is wasted. If a canal or ditch has to be repaired the members of the Subak do it communally. The farmers to plant rice to anything else. This is easily done in the rainy season when there is enough water for all the rice fields. But in the dry season when the Subak, depends entirely on the water provided by spring or river, in case a dam, this can pose a problem, because there is usually not enough water for all the rice fields of the Subak. There must be rotation. The Klian Subak, the head of Subak, who is elected by the members in a democratic way, has to decide which part of the Subak plants rice and which part has plant second crop, such as corn, sweat potato, soybean, tobacco or peanut; in the next dry season the part that has planted second crop, plants rice and the part that has planted rice now plants second crop.

The Subak is not only responsible for the planting of rice and the water supply, but it is also responsible for the maintenance of the dam and irrigation canals and ditches that leads the water from the dam to the rice fields. The good condition of the dam, the canals and the ditches assures the steady flow the water to the fields and that no water will be wasted.

The Subak as all organizations in Bali has a temple to maintain. The temple is called Pura Subak or Pura Bedugul. Every month the Subak members come together in the temple to discuss matters concerning the Subak, the water supply, the harvest and odalan, celebration of the anniversary day of the Subak temple. Being a temple dedicated to rice culture it nearly always lies out in the fields or near water courses of the Subak. In such a Pura of course Dewi Sri, the Rice Goddess, is worshipped.

Periodically, usually every 5 or 10 years, usually after a good harvest, Subaks of the district, organize a Ngusaba Nini, a big celebration of thanks giving that usually lasts for at least three days. It is done in Pura Bale Agung, a village temple with a large and long “bale”, a building of wood. The Goddess of all the Subak temples and the Rice Goddesses of all the farmers with granaries in the Bale Agung and stay there for the duration of the festival. It is, as every celebration in Bali, a very colorful spectacle to see many decorated bundles, representing the Goddesses, paraded along the streets of the town where the celebration takes place.

Other Bali Information
	Bali Behaviour There are a couple of rules for visiting temples. Except on rare occasions anyone can enter, anytime; there’s nothing like the attitude found in some temples in India where non-Hindus are firmly barred from entry. Now do you have to go barefoot like in many Buddhist shrines, but you are expected to be politely dressed. You should always wear a temple scarf – a sash tied loosely around your waist
	Bali Architecture Balinese temples usually consist of a series of courtyards entered from the sea side. In a large temple the outer gateway will generally be a candi bentar, modeled on the old Hindu temple of Java. These gateways resemble a tower cut in the halves and moved apart, courtyard is used for less important ceremonies,
	Bali Dance In fact it’s remarkably like the Balinese gamelan music which accompanies most dances, with its abrupt shifts of tempo, its dramatic changes between silence and crashing noise. There’s also virtually no contact in Balinese dancing, with each dancer moving completely independently.
	Bali Economy Bali’s economy is basically agrarian. The vast majority of Balinese are peasants working in the fields. Coffee, copra and cattle are major agricultural exports, while most of the rice grown goes to feed the island’s own teeming population.Unlike most island people, the Balinese are not great seafarers.........
	Bali Festival Festivals for much of the year Balinese temples are deserted, empty spaces. But on holy days, the deities and ancestral spirits descend from heaven to visit their devotees and the temples come alive with days of frenetic activity and nights of drama and dance. Temple festivals come at least once a Balinese year of 210 days.
	Bali Geography Bali is a tiny, extremely fertile and dramatically mountainous island. It has an area of 5620 square km, is only 140 km by 80 km and is just 8^ south of the equator. Bali’s central mountain chain, which runs east-west the whole length of the island, includes several peaks over 2000 meters and many active volcanoes......
	Bali Compound The smallest unit in the Balinese community is not the individual but the family. In the strictest sense of the word a family is a married couple with children and the broader sense a family is all the people who live in one compound, family compound. In one such compound there can live brothers, cousins and second cousins with all their children and all relatives who worship in one common house temple.
	Bali Households Despite the strong communal nature of Balinese society, their traditional houses are designed to divide the family from the outside world. Traditional houses (many of which can be seen in Ubud) are like houses in ancient Rome, they look inward and are surrounded by a high wall.....
	Bali Religion The Balinese are nominally Hindus but Balinese Hinduism is half a world away from that India. When the Majapahits evacuated to Bali they took with them their religion and its rituals as well as their art, literature, music and culture.
	Bali Village Organisation Village organization one of the important element of the village government is the Subak. Each individual rice field is known as a Sawah and each farmer who owns even one Sawah must be a member of his local Subak. The rice paddies must have a steady supply of water and it is the job of Subak to ensure that the water supply gets to everybody.
	Bali Society Balinese society is an intensely communal one; the organization of villages, the cultivation of farmlands and even the creative arts are communal efforts – a person belongs to their family, clan, caste and the village as a whole. Religion permeates all aspects of life so each stage of existence from soon after conception until after the final cremation is marked by ceremonies and ritual.....

Top Page I Home