For the past five years, seaweed harvests on Nusa Penida island have been decreasing due to the extreme changes of climate and the declining quality of the seeds.
“We estimate that this year Nusa Penida will continue to experience reduced production due to the ongoing extreme changes of climate,” head of Bali Marine and Fishery Agency, Made Gunaja, told the Bali Daily on Monday.
Bali has a total of 700 hectares of seaweed farms, 80 percent of which are located in the district of Nusa Penida, which also includes Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan islands. Last year, the Nusa Penida district produced around 141,863 tons of seaweed, a decline from the production of 152,226 tons in 2007.
The largest seaweed collector in Nusa Penida, Wayan Nurada, 64, recently lamented the production slump. “We have been seeing reduced production over the past five years. We used to buy some 200 tons of seaweed from the farmers of Nusa Penida and Nusa Lembongan every month. But lately we can only buy around 75 tons per month,” said Nurada, who with his wife, Made Alep, has been ruling the seaweed trade in Nusa Penida since its cultivation started in 1984.
Seaweed farmer I Made Raja, who owns a 70-square-meter farm in Banjar Bodong, Ped village, acknowledged that he could only harvest half of the amount he had usually harvested in the past. “Especially in the dry season, the seaweed does not grow normally and much of it dies before being harvested,” said Raja, whose monthly production of 400 kg could shrink to only 200 kg.
Raja, like most other farmers, prefers to replant the buds from his own crop because buying new seaweed seedlings costs too much. A knot of spinosum seed costs Rp 5,000 (US 0.5 cents), while a knot of katoni seed is tagged at Rp 15,000. “For a 70-square-meter plot, I would have to buy 200 knots. I can’t afford that,” said Raja, who earns between Rp 500,000 and Rp 800,000 a month.
Gunaja pointed out that the practice had resulted in a reduced quality in the harvest saying, “The seaweed has become vulnerable to disease and to extreme changes of weather.”
“We hope that the farmers will keep in mind a more sustainable practice of cultivation through planting new seedlings,” said Gunaja, expecting that farmers would leave one third of their farming plots in Nusa Penida to specifically cultivate seedlings. The agency last year initiated seedling cultivation at a smaller seaweed farm in Kuta.
Monitoring the quality of water in the coastal area where all the seaweed farms are located is also necessary, according to environmental observer I Wayan Suarna, the former director of the environmental research center of Udayana University in Denpasar. “There should be a routine monitoring of the quality of water in the region, to measure the amount of phosphates and nitrates, sedimentation and pollution, all of which may disrupt the growth of seaweed,” said Suarna. Founder of local environmental NGO, the Wisnu Foundation, I Made Suarnatha, also warned of escalating levels of chlorine that may pollute the water surrounding the three islands, due to the rapid growth of tourism, especially in the neighboring Nusa Lembongan and Nusa Ceningan.
In addition to the issues of climate change and seed cultivation, Nusa Penida seaweed farmers have for decades been facing a problematic situation concerning the unstable price of their crops. The agency’s head of crop processing and marketing division, Agung Sanjaya, acknowledged, “It’s truly difficult for us to interfere in the established ‘godfather-like’ seaweed trading system in Nusa Penida.”
“However, we will try to help strengthen the farmers associations by providing capital for the farmers through loans without collateral and subsidizing the seedling price. But that also remains difficult to implement because farmers prefer to get quick funds from the moneylenders,” said Sanjaya.
By Agnes Winarti
Published in Bali Daily/The Jakarta Post Tuesday, May 01 2012
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