Man, it was a real paradise and life was really like part of nature, I would say.
The culture, the lifestyle was totally different and way healthier than today.
So as far as I remember, every day I'm in the rice field.
Like since, as soon as I can walk, I was in the field and playing with frogs and fish.
In the laboratory, man's mind has long been pitted against his enemies.
Some as modern chemistry, biology and dedicated research have come thousands of effective
chemical compounds, all to help revolutionize the productivity of our own agriculture.
Late on and when finally the chemical farming and the hybrid came to the village and it
was like really bad, it was shocking.
I remember when we went out after the chemical farming, it was a really horrible sight because
you see these eels, they all floating and they all rotten and dead and the frog and
the fish and it smelled really bad, that was like so horrible.
I still remember the feeling, it was really like I was shocked because I was really disappointed.
I was still a child and I'm thinking that I know it's wrong, looking at all these things
are sterile, environment being sterile and all these dead creatures and I felt that there
were no more like this fun life where you part of the nature and you benefited from
natures.
Balinese culture, though it worked in preserving Hinduism, it was designed in the year 1041,
super ancient, so so ancient, today like from the environmental side it cannot support
this tradition anymore.
Since I was very little boy, I already want to have like kind of organization or movement
or whatever you call it, that sharing the knowledge and the experience of natural way
of living.
Sri Hitta Karana is, it's a Sanskrit, 3 meaning 3 and then Hitta meaning like 2 meaning it
can be prosperity and happiness and then Karana is the path and the how.
So the first one is you have to be harmony with human being, you have to be harmony with
the nature and you have to be harmony with the spirituality and if you can do that and
you be very happy.
I always encourage farmers to grow heritage rice but nearly every time farmers say back
to me, it's too long and it's always and oh man you should get so frustrated because
it's true, the hybrid is only take 3 months, the red rice took 6 months, it's always like
why is it too difficult and finally one of the farmer, he was one of the participant
from Taro village, so when the time to go and site visit to see how he's getting with
this new system, we discover the new, this variety, rediscover, it's always, this variety
of rice always grown in Taro but Taro being very isolated villages, no road getting in
there like no proper road and things grow there, it doesn't get spread.
So in 2007 after the workshop we went and we discover this mankok variety.
What's interesting about the mankok variety of rice is that it only takes 3 months and
20 days so that's kind of a medium, it'll be easier for those farmers which rely on
this 3 month cycle hybrid rice to switch back over to a heritage variety of rice if it only
takes 3 months.
So when we discover that and I was over the moon and you know I was so frustrated because
farmers always say the heritage rice was take too long so this time we got this rice and
it was so great and I just spread them all over.
This Taro village is the first place where the farming area start in Bali.
I think we until today we probably already covering about 900 farmers, we already go
around and spread like more like a sustainable way of farming, we will continue, we continue
to do the same thing, we never give up.
Permaculture is kind of new name for something very old, it's a way of living in harmony
with our environment which we've over time you know we've lost the knowledge of how to
look at nature, how to see where the sun is and where the wind is coming and utilize those
energies that are available to us and I think Bali is hungry for that and needs it you know.
