0 Pioneering a crop that keeps on giving

Until he discovered bamboo, Made Witarjana believed his one and a half hectares of land was virtually barren. The stony soil almost devoid of nutrients was a heritage good for corn cropping and not much else, says 36-year-old Witarjana. Today, this former wasteland is a forest of bamboo; leaves susurrate as breezes shiver the fine stems of bamboo clumps, the earth below is shaded and growing nutrient richer with regular doses of manure and rotting bamboo leaves. 

“This is all organic,” says Witarjana, who with his wife Nyoman Ruji lives in the environmentally active village of Kerta in Payangan, a village that has long gone green with organic rice, mixed farming and biogas systems at most homes. A couple of years ago Witarjana says he was seeking a crop that could cope with the poor soils of his land and also address in a small way Bali’s ongoing environmental issues and global warming. He wanted to plant a sustainable crop that offered food, handicraft materials and an alternative to timber for the building industry. 

“Once you chop down a tree for wood, it is decades before a new sapling has matured in its place, with bamboo it is sustainable because it is fast growing and regenerates — we can harvest bamboo shoots twice each wet season and canes for handicraft or building materials,” says Witarjana, who grows tabah bamboo, as this species offers very high quality bamboo shoots with a distinctly buttery flavor. And, the high quality canes are ideal for handicraft. The tabah bamboo also uptakes large amounts of water to feed its hair-like root system, reducing water logging during the wet season, explains Witarjana. 

Bamboo has long been harvested in Bali, but what sets Witarjana and Ruji apart from other bamboo farmers is the sheer volume of plants. “We have 2,400 bamboos growing and from that we harvest 3 tons of bamboo shoots. We take just 15 shoots from the bamboo clump that produces about 25 shoots, so the plant continues to grow and produce forever. What is different is that in the past most farmers planted just enough bamboo for personal use — it was not a farmed crop and when the bamboo died it was not replanted,” says Witarjana of a crop that university scientists say is an ideal choice for comprised soils. 

“We went to Udayana to find out from scientists there what we could do with our land, because it has a lot of water, but is stony and very poor. They said this bamboo. I was motivated to protect the environment and I was interested in how small steps can save the environment, even if those small steps are just to produce something sustainable for myself,” says Witarjana who has a home industry handicraft busiess making bamboo souvenirs. Intensive farming of bamboo is still new in Bali, says Witajana who joins other farmers across Gianyar regency in the new, environmentally sustainable project. 

“Here in our village there are 70 hectares under bamboo and the goal for Gianyar is to have 500 hectares growing in areas that are unsuited to many other crops. Bamboo thrives in poor or critical soils and even near beaches — there are plans to grow bamboo near Mesceti beach,” says Witarjana, who received assistance from Udayana University and the Go Green organization. “At the time we had only the land for this project. We found out that just one seed would cost Rp 15,000 [US$1.55]. 

We received seed from Go Green and that has allowed us to develop the bamboo farm. As we produce bamboo canes and food from bamboo shoots we receive advice from the agriculture and forestry departments,” says Witarjana who is already receiving many inquiries from China and Japan for the bamboo shoot delicacies. Exports of the shoots are still some time off as harvest volumes are too low for a viable export market, however Witarjana believes that will change as the bamboo farms mature. 

“Into the future there is an open market into China and Japan, but our production levels are not yet high enough for export. Certainly this will be an export crop in the future,” says Witarjana of the tabah bamboo shoots that do not have the distinctive bitter taste of many bamboo shoot types. Growing his own high quality bamboo has also proved a boon to Witarjana’s small-scale handicraft business. Set in a kiosk on the roadside, half a dozen local men and women craft coconut husks into birds that have bamboo wind chimes attached. 

“I opened this kiosk some time ago to produce bamboo handicrafts, but I found I was always having problems with the bamboo supply. It was expensive and I had to source it from Bangli, which is quite a distance away. I also found the quality was not that good, inconsistent, so I had the idea that instead of buying from far away, I would plant my own bamboo. So I am helping my environment, creating jobs and making a living,” says Witarjana, proving that Bali’s environment does not need to be compromised and that creative farming offers positive income solutions.

source : the jakarta post