Japanese Student Learn about Waste Management and Agriculture System in Indonesia

Tokyo University is one of the best universities in Asia. Compared with the world universities, Tokyo University is at the top 42 universities in the world according to times higher education (THE). Last month (February 25-March 5), six students from Tokyo University visited Bali Island. Their visit was part of the course namely ‘Sustainability’ which is handled by Alexandros Gasparatos as the professor. The students learned about agriculture and waste management in Bali through field visits and interviews with the local people.

The students come from various majors of study such as Urban Planning, Architecture, Chemistry, Economics, and so forth. And thus, they were separated into two teams. Koichi Omori and Yuma Watanabe joined the waste management team and the other four students joined the agriculture team. The agriculture team more concerned about the entanglement of young people in agriculture. This team consists of Yuta Osaki, Mirai Takamatsu, Shiene Kiriya, and Masanori Kobayasi.

Exploring Sustainability Issues in Bali

The students met with many people around Canggu as well as some local farmers in Bedugul and Petang. On February 28, su-re.co team, Future Farmers Indonesia and Tokyo University students went to Petang and Bedugul to meet the organic farmers. The temperature is a bit cold there, hence it is good to plant fruits and vegetables. The student observed the farmland and asked some questions to the farmers. The difference of language did not obstruct the communication since our team assist them with translation from English to Bahasa and vice versa. However, the condition in Bedugul is a bit different than other agricultural districts. The people are depending on agriculture, even they can get good income from this sector. Bedugul has been well-known as the center of vegetables in Bali hence many hotels trust in its quality.

On the other side, the waste management team visited some landfills in Bali namely in Tabanan and Badung. The condition of landfills in Bali is apprehensive, the garbage is piled up like a mountain especially the waste of plastic bags. Moreover, Koichi and Yuma also talked with the farmers about how do they manage their waste. The good news is the farmers use organic waste for fertilizer, by contrast, most of them burn plastic waste instead of recycling it. The students also visited the beach near Canggu to clean up the garbage at the beach.

Based on the field visit and interview, the students will arrange ideas about how to solve the problems of waste and agriculture in Bali. The output of this activity might be published as a journal article.