Stephen Lansing: 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.

When the Green Revolution came to Bali in 1971, suddenly everything went wrong. Along with the higher-yield rice came Òtechnology packetsÓ 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. Lansing goes on to show how much modern agriculture had to learn from Balinese rice production.

Speaker: Stephen Lansing
Director: Chris Baldwin, Shoulder High Productions
Producer: Stewart Brand and The Long Now Foundation
Studio: Whole Earth Films
DVD FORMAT: NTSC, Widescreen
Region: All Regions
Language: English
Number of discs: 1
Rating: Unrated
Release date: February 13, 2006
Duration: 78 minutes