In Reply to: No's must be up for Bali Destination posted by luvthe NT on Saturday, 7. June 2008 at 19:25 Bali Time:
- particularly when combined with a posting further down about the price of oil and indeed, as one poster mentioned, the very continuation of oil supply.
Bali was once an exporter of rice to the rest of Indonesia and the wider world. These days it is forced to import rice from off-shore, and that very supply is under threat. This change has come about despite the fact that the old time 2 crops a year is now 3 crops a year and the new rice varieties being planted are heavier yielders than the old ones.
How can this come about?
There are many factors but tourism is perhaps the biggest. Not only do we consume buckets of the stuff ourselves but also we stay in hotels which sit on high quality land that once produced rice and we continually demend newer and bigger places to stay in takink up more and more of the old rice lands. We want bigger carparks and more roads too, all taking up that productive dirt.
The old farmers' families who once planted, tended and harvested the rice, in an ancient cycle that ensured fresh grain in the family lumbung almost every week, are now mixing cocktails at the numerous pool bars and spending their earnings on motor bikes and mobile phones. The 'free' labour that was once an integral part of the self sustaining rice harvest is now replaced by mechanical tractors, ploughs and harvesters, catering to vast fields rather than the small paddies of old. All this is a new additional cost to the farmer.
'Tourism is killing Bali' I have heard it said - with greater frequency as time goes by, yet tourists are the ones who are pouring money into the place.
Where does all the money go?
If money is good and improves the quality of life for the Balinese why are there ever more beggars on the streets?
Will we really be the ones responsible for the demise of the place and the people we love?
I only have questions, I don't have any answers, answers need people much wiser than me.