Seaweed farmers bear the ebb-and-flow of price and tides

Not only dealing with nature’s tidal ebb and flow, the tough seaweed farmers of Nusa Penida Island, southeast of Bali, have been putting up with the unpredictable price of their harvests for decades.

A resident of the coastline of Nusa Penida, 73-year-old Wayan Repung, has been harvesting seaweed for the past 30 years, and, until today, he continues doing so alongside his wife, Ketut Kanthi.

“Our age should have forced us to stop working, yet the situation has made us do otherwise,” bare-chested grandpa Repung smiled radiantly despite the hardships showing off his toothless gums, as he dried his seaweed harvest under the scorching heat of the sun one afternoon near his home in Suana village.

Sunset chore: A Nusa Penida seaweed farmer repairs the net that secures her plants when the tide ebbs. In the background is Mt. Agung, the island’s holiest mountain. BD/Agung Parameswara



As their earnings are simply enough for one day’s meals, 60-year-old Kanthi added, “How can we stop working if our stomachs are empty?” The couple could only ensure that their two now-adult children completed junior high school as higher education was just too expensive to pay for from the seaweed harvests alone.

Just like the couple, dadong (grandma) Ni Nengah Lagri, a resident of banjar Bodong in Ped village, who is fondly called the Iron Grannie by her neighbors, keeps returning to the sea as the tide recedes during harvest time. “I’ve just harvested this morning at 4 a.m.,” said the hunch-backed grannie, who has no idea of her actual age.

Over the past decades, the dozens of kilometers of seaweed farms — beginning at Toya Pakeh village and ending at Suana village along the western to eastern coastline of the secluded Nusa Penida — have served as the backbone revenue generator for the villagers, yet to some extent, it is failing to improve their basic quality of life.

“Seaweed prices have always changed drastically. Although seaweed farming is the main economic activity on this island, we can never count on it alone,” said Nyoman Sukarta, a seaweed farmer for eight years, who sent two of his four children through university. He could only achieve this because he also earns an income from his cattle and a 16-hectare coconut tree farm.

Spinosum (eucheuma spinosum) and katoni (eucheuma cottonii) are the two most sought after seaweed types on the island.

In a banjar (local neighborhood organization) owned by farmer Nyoman Carti, spinosum fetches Rp 4,200 per kilogram, while katoni brings in Rp 7,000 per kg. “Last year, katoni went up to Rp 12,000 per kg,” said Carti.

All the farmers pointed out that their hardships were due to the fact that they have no say in determining the selling price, as all prices are controlled by the collectors and tengkulak (middlemen), who are often also loan sharks. When facing cash shortages, farmers borrow money from the tengkulak because the island’s only Village Cooperative Unit (KUD) does not function, thus the entangled situation weakens the farmers’ bargaining position.

Nusa Penida’s seaweed farming was initiated in 1984 by the Jungutbatu villagers of the neighboring Nusa Lembongan Island after seeds were distributed there by some seaweed businesspeople from Surabaya, recalled Made Alep, the largest seaweed collector in Nusa Penida who owns a 300-ton capacity warehouse in banjar Batumulapan in Suana village.

“After the first harvests in Lembongan were purchased by the businessmen, the news of how seaweed could provide quick cash spread fast among villagers here. Within that same year, the entire Nusa Penida coastline, from east to west, turned into seaweed farms,” added Wayan Nurada, Alep’s husband. Prior to the emergence of seaweed farming, villagers of the arid Nusa Penida mostly earned irregular incomes from selling cattle and farming corn, cassava and other harvests that depend heavily on the rainy season.

Most of the seaweed harvests of Nusa Penida and Nusa Lembongan are purchased by the husband-and-wife team of Alep and Nurada, who have dominated the seaweed trading business since 1984. They sell hundreds of tons of seaweed on a monthly basis to traders in Surabaya and Jakarta that export the processed harvests to China, Japan, France and the United States. Spinosum seaweed is an ingredient used in cooking in China, while katoni is processed into seaweed flour for various industries, including cosmetics, medicine and food.

Alep acknowledged that competition is tightening nowadays due to a rise in other local collectors who trade with businesses in Jakarta and Surabaya after the opening of the ferry port in Mentigi-Kutampi.

Nurada blamed the uncertain demand from Surabaya and Jakarta, as well as the low quality of harvests, as the main cause of the fluctuating prices. “We pay a high price only if the harvests have been dried correctly, resulting in the ideal 24 percent water content. We have received harvests that are insufficiently dried and sometimes even mixed with trash,” said Nurada. Buying wet harvests would be expensive, because after his workers dried the seaweed the remaining volume would shrink up to 45 percent.

Despite having applied the correct harvest-drying procedure to reach the expected export quality, farmers said they still had to put up with drastic price fluctuations. “Five years ago, we dried the harvests correctly, but the prices remained unsteady. So now, farmers just sell the harvests whenever the price is seen to be suitable,” said Sukarta.

“The trade politics of seaweed here is fierce. We need the presence of stronger investors to compete against this couple that have been monopolizing the trade here,” said another Nusa Penida resident Wayan Suryanta, who quit farming seaweed to work for the island’s Bali Starling bird sanctuary.

Nowadays, many of the seaweed farmers are the elderly, while younger residents prefer to search for work in the city of Denpasar or transmigrate to Sumbawa or Sumatra.

By Agnes Winarti 
Photograph by Agung Parameswara 
Published in Bali Daily/The Jakarta Post Monday, April 30 2012

I Nyoman Adi Saputra : Breathing new life

By Agnes Winarti 

Photo taken by Agung Parameswara

Published in Bali Daily/The Jakarta Post  | April 16, 2012

I Nyoman Adi Saputra

After working in the hotel business in Denpasar from 2000 to 2006, I Nyoman Adi Saputra, 31, returned to his home in Tunjuk village, Tabanan regency, to dedicate himself to being an elementary school English teacher. Upon returning home, Nyoman also reignited his childhood passion as a Wayang Wong performer, part of his heritage as a member of the Pasak Gede Bendesa clan. This time, he is bringing along youngsters to follow in his path to preserve one of Bali’s most precious performing arts legacies.

Wayang Wong is an ancient form of masked dance usually performing stories taken from the great Hindu epic Ramayana. It is both a wali (sacred art performed only in religious context and settings), and a bebali (performing art that can be staged for entertainment purposes). Its popularity as a bebali dance has steadily decreased, primarily due to the language barrier — Wayang Wong uses the ancient Javanese Kawi as its primary language.

Here are excerpts of his views on the preservation of Wayang Wong in Tunjuk village as he shared with Bali Daily’s Agnes Winarti recently.

Question: Why do you believe your Wayang Wong is sacred? 

Answer: Wayang Wong is performed in our clan temple to complete religious ceremonies or Yadnya. We call it the wali (sacred) dance, because it is not staged for entertainment purposes, although people can watch the performance. We hold a special ceremony before Wayang Wong can be performed outside our own temple, for example, at the Tabanan Arts Festival.

How have you initiated the revitalization of your clan’s Wayang Wong?

I myself have been performing Wayang Wong since I was a fourth-grade student in elementary school. I was the only kid allowed to perform, because I kept crying if the elders forbade me. I started playing a small role as a monkey soldier, then, at the age of 17, I was promoted to play in the key roles of Hanoman, Rama and Rawana. After graduating from senior high school, I joined both Wayang Wong and Wayang Kulit shadow puppet groups. Afterwards, I continued to invite more youngsters, including my nephews and nieces, to join in Wayang Wong.

From 1987 to 1992, our clan’s Wayang Wong troupe entered a quiet period. There wasn’t a single performance during that time because the dancers, who were quite old, were in low spirits and did not want to perform.

Finally, we (the younger generation) begged the elders to change their policy on who could perform in Wayang Wong. Now, little kids can perform after they have undergone a special religious purification ceremony. We have just started this regeneration recently, in the past four years. Now, we welcome kids as young as 10 years old to play both as performers or penabuh (music players).

Interestingly, after the young dancers began their training, the senior dancers started returning to the troupe. Apparently, the spirit showed by the kids inspired our older performers.

In previous years, why was there no regeneration?

The children had only limited interest in performing because Wayang Wong is regarded as tenget (highly charged with supernatural power that could hurt performers unless they are blessed by the gods first). Kids could not even touch the gamelan musical instruments, so they could not participate.

How did you develop the interest of these kids to join in?

We recruit those who can dance and sing, talk with them and convince them to join Wayang Wong training. We continue to support those who are talented; we ask their parents’ permission too. The training is not that long, two or three training sessions and then they are ready to perform. Usually, those who are talented grasp the essence very quickly. We usually place those who are still training in small assisting roles that can use a mix of languages, or have less dialogue interaction with other performers. During training, we allow new performers to use a mix of Balinese, Indonesian and Kawi languages.  For the young monkey warriors, we give them a few simple Kawi words to say during the performance so they only need to memorize a little. Then the kids aren’t over-burdened and frustrated due to the language difficulties. Our first goal is to build their interest in Wayang Wong, make them happy and enjoy performing it.

Honestly, we still don’t have enough youngsters. Our current performances are played by 12-15 people, instead of the ideal 20 dancers. We are still looking for more talent, and we are not exclusively seeking people from inside the clan. We welcome anyone who wishes to join our group, even if they are from outside our village.

How crucial is the ability to use Jawa Kuna or Kawi language in the Wayang Wong dialogue?

Anyone who plays the central roles, such as Rama, Sita and Laksamana, must have full ability in Bahasa Kawi, which is a complex language. The Wayang Wong format requires the use of Jawa Kuna or Kawi. But not all people or spectators understand the language, which is why we have the punakawan (court jester and advisor) characters, such as Sangut, Delem, Merda and Twalen that will interpret the main actors’ Kawi dialogue into Balinese, Indonesian, or even English. This is why the punakawan roles are still played by the more senior performers, who have a better knowledge of vocabulary than children.

How optimistic are you that this breakthrough will help preserve Wayang Wong?

I’m quite confident that this legacy can be preserved. We will keep going with this way of preservation. Welcoming child performers into the Wayang Wong, I believe, has only been done in our village. We received warm applause when these youngsters performed in the 2010 Tabanan Arts Festival. Other villages were still featuring Wayang Wong performers of over 60 years old.

They were amazed to see that their grandchildren’s generation can perform as well. Hopefully other villages will follow our path. Wayang Wong is such a precious legacy dating back to the 18th century. It’s not that we are disrespecting its sacredness, we just want to preserve it. How else can we achieve that, if not by letting the children take part? If we don’t do this, 10 years from now, nobody will be performing this art form anymore.