Bali’s rice growing cycle

Rice is the staple in Bali and the Balinese people’s expertise in growing it is a big part of the reason for their developed culture. Being able to produce large amounts of rice enabled the Balinese to spend time in artistic and cultural pursuits.

Rice production start in the sawah (rice field). Rice seed is planted in a protected bed. While the seedlings mature, the farmer ploughs the fields using a water buffalo. The sawah is prepared by flooding, ploughing and leveling the field, a process that is made no easier in the intense tropical heat.

When rice seedlings start to mature, they are pulled and transplanted by hand to the sawah, where they are planted in rows, about a foot apart. In the various stages of maturing, the sawah is flooded and dried to maximize growth of the rice plants (padi).

Harvesting comes when the rice plants are a meter tall and turning yellow. Whereas the first stages of rice growing are done by men, it is the women who harvest, using a small palm-held knife, so as not to scare Dewi Sri, the Goddess of rice production.

The rice stalks are threshed right there in the field, with the separated rice seeds now called beras. In traditional villages, the beras is kept in an elevated rice barn (lumbung), to protect it from wet weather and rats. The last stage of the rice production cycle is burning the stalks, which creates an alkaline ash.

Rice production is still extremely important to Bali and it will be interesting to how future generations take to it.