Planting Stick

Pak Sukri (see Peat Farmer) shows the huge planting stick used in the peat swamp-based rice fields in Punggur, West Kalimantan. Granddaughter in the background looks on with interest.  

Warung Kopi

Found an image from the wonderful coffee shop, or warung kopi, in Punggur that I mentioned several weeks ago (see Punggur). Customers look pretty happy with their breakfast, i.e. coffee, a roll, and maybe a pickled egg (shown in the jars with the orange brine). [NOTE: Best part about this place is the view].

Punggur

This is what it looks like when you come into the little town of Punggur on the coast of West Kalimantan by boat (see String of Pearls and Peat Farmer). Looks like low tide, and you have to climb up a ladder to get into town. I remember that there is a wonderful little "warung kopi", i.e. coffee shop, right on the pier. Strong, hot coffee served in a small glass with lots of sweetened condensed milk. [NOTE: Colors are muddy because the image was scanned from an old slide].

Parit

Found a box of old slides from Indonesia. This one shows Elysa taking some measurements on a drainage canal, or "parit", being dug through one of the peat swamps outside of Pontianak (see String of Pearls and Peat Farmer).  These site will ultimately be turned into species-rich agro-forestry systems dominated by fruit trees like langsat (Lansium domesticum Corréa) and durian (Durio zibethinus Van Nooten). It all starts by digging a canal and draining the water out of the peat so that it subsides - and can be burned. [NOTE: The last two posts have had some truly great hats in them...]

Peat Farmer

Pak Sukri from Punggur, West Kalimantan (see String of Pearls) is one of the best farmers I have ever met.  Even more so given that he is successfully farming a substrate that agronomists will tell you is unproductive, i.e. peat soils. Deep peat soils.  Over a period of several years, he drains, compresses, and carefully burns the peat. When he has reduced the peat layer to within a meter or so of the mineral soil underneath (now enriched by the slow release of nutrients from the organic material above), he  uses double-transplanted seedlings with long roots and a 2 meter dibble stick to start planting rice.  The rice seedlings are tapping into the mineral soil; the peat simply provides support and continual moisture. I am convinced that Pak Sukri could figure out a way to farm the moon. [NOTE: Elysa worked with Pak Sukri and took this photo (thx, Elysa); pineapples, cassava, rice, coconuts, and taro are visible in his field].

String of Pearls

The Banjarese farmers in Punggur on the coast of West Kalimantan create diverse agroforestry systems by draining, burning, and slowly getting rid of the peat that underlies local forests. A network of canals - dug by hand - grid the area and regulate the daily tidal flow.

Coconuts are one of the most important plant products during the early developmental stages of these systems. To get the coconuts to market, they string them together in long chains and float them out in the canals.