Organic Rice Farming Development: Principles, Challenges, and Strategies: The Case of Subak Jatiluwih, Bali Province, Indonesia

Abstrak

In Bali province, a green revolution program has been introduced to increase rice productivity, but resulted in environmental degradation, including soil, water, and air, which is detrimental and endangers human health. One of the programs that has been implemented is organic rice farming practices, and encouraged to back to nature. This study has objectives to to determine the application of organic rice farming principles by farmers, the challenges faced by farmers in developing organic rice farming and the implications of developing organic rice farming. Subak Jatiluwih was selected by purposively selected as a research site. There are 60 farmer samples were taken by using simple random sampling. The collected data were then analyzed using qualitative descriptive methods.

The results pointed out that principles of organic rice farming applied by farmers are environmental and cultural friendly, integrated system, non-synthetic materials, utilization of local resources, and justice. The challenges faced by farmers in developing organic rice farming, namely: (i) farmers’ perception toward highly-cost for production; (ii) relative low productivity; (iii) number of consumers are limited; (iv) pest and disease risks; (v) farmers' dependence on synthetic chemical fertilizers; (vi) program of rice self-sufficiency; (vii) uncertainty market of organic rice; and (viii) limited organic materials. Government’s strategic efforts needed are: (i) increasing the production; (ii) empowering farmers; (iii) developing and implementing organic farming practices; (iv) strengthening institutions of farmers; and (v) establishing a market for rice organic.