FAO Director General Qu Dongyu joins Bali Woman's farmers for ritual dance before rice pounding

Bali as a global popular tourist destination often faces the challenges of water scarcity, which threaten the livelihoods of the local population. Bali farmers, in particular, are facing complexity of these problems in their day-to-day lives. At the same time, Bali also faces the challenges of endemic Rabies that threatens the lives of tourists and local population.

Sustaining the lives, livelihoods and tourism in Bali therefore requires a holistic approach, and this was one of the themes of the field visit on the last day of the G20 Agriculture Ministerial Meeting in Bali. FAO DG Qu Dongyu, visited a UNESCO world heritage in Jatiluwih Rice Terrace, and interacted with the local officials and farmers.

Jatiluwih, A Sustainable Irrigation System

Jatiluwih Rice Terrace in Tabanan district in Bali is a reflection of Balinese philosophy of Tri Hita Karana and Tri Mandala that maintain the harmonious relationships between the Gods, humans, and the environment --including animals and plants.

The rice fields have been applying irrigation system called ‘Subak’ for centuries, which requires harmonious cooperation among different farmers, especially for water management. The hundred old philosophy and practices have resulted into stunning scene of huge rice fields.

FAO DG, together with few other G20 ministers of agricultures and officials, enjoyed the scenery of beautiful rice field, interacted with farmers and local officials, and tasted locally produced Balinese tropical produces, such as coconut, banana, organic coffee, and mangosteens. The DG also joined a group of woman farmers ritual performance of dancing and singing followed by rice pounding with the female farmers.

The lyrics of the song the women farmers sang said:

Mai te ngigel (Come here to dance)
Mebanten sumping keladi (Offer banana cake and boiled taro)
Ane kengken kayun idewa (What do you really want?)
Adi tusing mengelah padi (Why you don’t have paddy?)
Titiang niki petani desa (We are rural farmers)

The lyrics reflected their food availability, and the way of their life as farmers.
Rice pounding is a part of Balinese women’s life. They collectively do it in the community supporting each other, and get paid with 10% of the pounded rice.

Real time mobile application as solution to farmers problem

The FAO DG then visited FAO project on e-agriculture showcasing the use of mobile phone application under the FAO flagship Digital Village Initiatives (DVI) programme. FAO DG witnessed the demonstration of the mobile application and dashboard system to gather real time and comprehensive data from on-farm activities in the area.

The mobile application assisted extension workers in collecting integrated data from the field in collaboration with the coffee poducers in Pajahan, Bali and rice farmers in Yogyakarta, Central Java. The collected data is connected directly with the Agricultural War Room (AWR), a digital control room at the Ministry of Agriculture in Jakarta, monitoring the farmers work and situation at the central level.

FAO has also assisted the Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture in developing a comprehensive National E-Agriculture Strategy, which focuses on guiding agriculture data integration to enhance digital agriculture in the country.

Mass Rabies Vaccination for wellbeing of the Bali people

As his final destination of the field visit, DG visited a mass Rabies vaccination in a village hall, at the Balai Banjar Belah, Luwus Village and participated in the World Rabies Day celebration together with the Secretary General of the Ministry of Agriculture. FAO DG interacted with the local Balinese veterinarians and the school children.

FAO has been supporting the Rabies control programme in Bali following One Health Approach. FAO”s technical supported helped achieve significant reduction of more than 70% of animal cases and almost 100% of human cases in 2012 and 2013. However, a downturn took place unfortunately again in 2014, where rabies re-incursion in Bali took 15 lives. Intensive program was then implemented by FAO in 2016 together with the Ministry of Agriculture that has largely helped reduce the cases of Rabies.

Since 2011, FAO has worked together with the Indonesian government to control rabies in several provinces through awareness campaigns, capacity building, Dog Population Management (DPM) pilot programmes, rabies cadre empowerment, and provision of vaccines and information systems using One Health approach.. All of these efforts are carried out with the funding support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).