{"id":6453,"date":"2026-05-21T01:10:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:10:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/?p=6453"},"modified":"2026-05-21T01:11:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:11:35","slug":"saving-balis-subak-in-a-growing-city-where-tradition-now-comes-with-a-salary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/saving-balis-subak-in-a-growing-city-where-tradition-now-comes-with-a-salary\/","title":{"rendered":"Saving Bali\u2019s Subak in a Growing City Where Tradition Now Comes With a Salary"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BALI<\/strong> – In Denpasar, the leaders of Bali\u2019s centuries-old irrigation system are now receiving a monthly government salary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not a ceremonial allowance handed out during festivals. Not a symbolic cultural subsidy. An actual wage deposited each month as Bali\u2019s capital struggles to keep one of the island\u2019s most important traditions alive amid accelerating urban development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting this year, the Denpasar city government has begun paying 2.5 million rupiah per month to each of its 42 pekaseh, the traditional heads of subak communities, alongside 1.5 million rupiah for 144 pangliman, or deputy leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The policy may sound administrative on paper. In reality, it reflects something far larger unfolding across Bali: the quiet weakening of the subak system inside an island increasingly shaped by land certificates, villas, and urban expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For visitors, subak often appears timeless. Tourists photograph emerald rice terraces in places like Jatiluwih or cycle through the paddies surrounding Ubud, seeing a landscape that feels inseparable from Bali itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But inside Denpasar, Bali\u2019s fast-growing urban center, the pressures facing the subak are becoming harder to ignore.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Photo of rice fields with a subak irrigation system in Bali<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The subak<\/a><\/strong> is not simply an irrigation network. Recognized by UNESCO as part of Bali\u2019s cultural heritage, it combines water management, farming cooperation, temple ritual, and customary law into a system that has shaped Balinese life for generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its structure rests on three interconnected elements: the spiritual relationship centered around water temples, the farming community led by traditional authorities, and the agricultural land itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasingly, that final element is disappearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice fields on the edges of Denpasar continue to shrink as land changes ownership and agricultural plots are converted into housing, warehouses, caf\u00e9s, and tourism accommodation. In some areas, irrigation channels still run beside concrete walls and newly built villas, remnants of a farming landscape being gradually absorbed into the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even when the rice fields vanish, the religious obligations tied to the subak often remain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTake Peraupan Barat as an example,\u201d said Raka Purwantara, head of Denpasar\u2019s Culture Agency, during an interview in May. \u201cThe land is now dry and used for vegetables, but the temple is still there. Even if the farmland disappears, the responsibility to maintain the temple does not disappear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That burden increasingly falls on fewer active farmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denpasar\u2019s monthly payments are intended to keep the system functioning while the economic foundations underneath it continue to erode. The salaries help support ceremonial duties, coordination among farmers, and the preservation of subak institutions that once depended almost entirely on agricultural activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the deeper challenge facing Bali\u2019s urban subak may no longer be water alone. It is ownership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purwantara acknowledged that customary village regulations, known locally as awig-awig or perarem, only apply within the traditional community structure. Once land is sold outside the customary village and formally certified through Indonesia\u2019s land administration system, the authority of the subak becomes significantly weaker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the land already has a certificate, we cannot intervene,\u201d he said. \u201cThe law follows what is written on that certificate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The distinction matters across Bali, where agricultural land is increasingly caught between traditional governance and formal property law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Land still categorized as traditional or uncertified can sometimes remain under stronger customary oversight, allowing coordination between village authorities, land agencies, and agricultural offices. But once fully certified and transferred into private ownership, enforcing traditional protections becomes far more difficult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many foreign residents and investors arriving in Bali\u2019s property market, the legal shift can be almost invisible. A rice field viewed during a holiday visit may look permanent, even sacred. A few years later, the same landscape may hold private villas, caf\u00e9s, or boutique accommodation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In many cases, the transformation begins not with bulldozers, but with paperwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, Denpasar\u2019s remaining farmers are confronting another reality: growing rice inside an expanding city is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain economically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rather than insisting on preserving rice cultivation at all costs, local officials are now encouraging farmers to adapt. In smaller urban plots, horticulture crops such as chili, tomatoes, flowers, corn, and eggplant are often considered more financially viable than rice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Purwantara noted that migrant farmers, particularly from Java, have already adjusted to those conditions by renting smaller plots and focusing on high-value seasonal crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur local farmers have not fully seen the opportunity yet,\u201d he said. \u201cThe migrants who come here understand strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city\u2019s agricultural future, he suggested, may depend less on preserving an idealized image of Bali\u2019s farming past and more on helping younger farmers survive economically within a rapidly urbanizing island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not all subak in Denpasar face identical pressures. Areas in eastern Denpasar still maintain relatively stable irrigation and continue rice cultivation, while downstream districts dealing with poorer water quality are considered more suitable for horticulture and mixed crops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the broader trajectory remains difficult to ignore.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\nPhoto
Photo of rice fields with a subak irrigation system in Bali<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For travelers, Bali\u2019s rice fields often symbolize tranquility and continuity. For local authorities trying to preserve them, the landscape has become a negotiation between culture, economics, tourism, and property law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city\u2019s decision to pay subak leaders each month reveals how much that balance has changed. Traditions once sustained organically through farming communities are now increasingly dependent on state support to survive inside the urban economy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For now, Denpasar still has 42 active subak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But across Bali\u2019s capital, the ancient system that once governed water and agriculture through collective obligation is entering a new phase \u2014 one where preservation no longer depends solely on ritual and harvests, but also on whether tradition can endure in a city where the value of land continues to rise faster than the fields themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#heybalinews<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BALI – In Denpasar, the leaders of Bali\u2019s centuries-old irrigation system are now receiving a monthly government salary. Not a ceremonial allowance handed out during festivals. Not a symbolic cultural subsidy. An actual wage deposited each month as Bali\u2019s capital struggles to keep one of the island\u2019s most important traditions alive amid accelerating urban development. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_bookmark_settings":[],"jnews_food_recipe":[],"enable_food_recipe":"","food_recipe_title":"","food_recipe_description":"","food_recipe_serve":"","food_recipe_time":"","food_recipe_prep":"","food_recipe_level":"","food_recipe_keywords":"","food_recipe_category":"","food_recipe_cuisine":"","food_recipe_yield":"","food_recipe_calories":"","enable_print_recipe":"","ingredient":[],"instruction":"","jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_review":[],"enable_review":"","type":"","name":"","summary":"","brand":"","sku":"","good":[],"bad":[],"score_override":"","override_value":"","rating":[],"price":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,51],"tags":[47,431,106,146,108,77,386,54,919],"class_list":["post-6453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bali-news","category-bali-update","tag-bali","tag-bali-culture","tag-bali-expat","tag-bali-life","tag-culture","tag-indonesia","tag-jatiluwih","tag-news","tag-subak"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6453"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6460,"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6453\/revisions\/6460"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heybali.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}