Paper short abstract:

Agriculture is a technological, ecological, economic, social, moral and aesthetic process. This paper summarises recent transformations of the aesthetic/moral economy/ecology of rice growing in Bali and discusses projects which may be understood in terms of redressing moral/aesthetic imbalances.

Paper long abstract:

Agriculture is clearly a technological process but it is equally also an ecological, economic, social, moral and aesthetic one. In Bali, a millennium-long tradition of very efficient cultivation of wet rice (paddy), was deeply embedded in religious, moral and aesthetic ecologies and economies. These were disturbed first by Dutch colonial interventions, then more deeply by the Green Revolution and more recently by broader forces of globalisation. It has been said of the Green Revolution that "its real significance is conceptual not technological and …its real failing is ideological … the immorality of its ecology" (Dove and Kammen 1997:92 ). This linkage, I would argue, is true of all agricultural change, certainly in Bali. This paper summarises recent transformations of the aesthetic/moral economy/ecology of rice growing in Bali and discusses several projects labelled as "sustainable" or "organic" in terms of their redressing of these moral/aesthetic imbalances as well as their more obvious technological and economic success.