« Perfect Order: A Thousand Years in Bali »

With lucid exposition and gorgeous graphics, anthropologist Stephen Lansing exposed the hidden structure and profound health of the traditional Balinese rice growing practices. The intensely productive terraced rice paddies of Bali are a thousand years old. So are the democratic subaks (irrigation cooperatives) that manage them, and so is the water temple system that links the subaks in a nested hierarchy.

Lansing and his colleagues applied complexity theory to understand the resilience of this ancient sustainable agriculture system.

Then, when the Green Revolution came to Bali in 1971, suddenly everything went wrong. Along with the higher-yield rice came "technology packets" of fertilizers and pesticides and the requirement, stated in patriotic terms, to "plant as often as possible." The result: year after year millions of tons of rice harvest were lost, mostly to voracious pests. The level of pesticide use kept being increased, to ever decreasing effect.

A fascinating exploration of the disruption by modern technology of a system of agriculture that has been sustainable for over 1,000 years.  There is some important lessons here for our own efforts to navigate the transition to sustainability before it is too late.

The video stream above is the first 15 minutes of Stephen Lansing's presentation. Click on the bottom left corner of the video window to watch the whole presentation.