Yogyakarta natural farm

The self-sustainable woruntu farm outside Yogyakarta. Rabbits and worms all play a part on the farm, which has its own water recycling system.  (JG Photo/Godeliva D. Sari)

Godeliva D. Sari | February 12, 2012
http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/lifeandtimes/in-yogya-betting-the-farm-on-natural-living/497513?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jgnewsletter

Located near the royal graves of the Javanese Mataram dynasty in the hills of Imogiri, southeast of Yogyakarta, is a unique farm run by Iskandar and Darmila Waworuntu, their children and friends. 

The farm is dedicated to an all-natural, self-sustainable lifestyle and sharing its practices and ideas with the community. 


The 3.5-hectare property is located on a limestone hill in Imogiri that has very shallow top soil, but Iskandar and his team of like-minded people dug a deep well to find water that transformed the barren hill into a present-day Eden...


Iskandar explained the ideas, goals and motivations that inspired their self-reliant lifestyle. 
“I feel that there is an urgency now to change our lifestyles and live sustainably and in harmony with nature,” he said. “Everything is already so contaminated, so saturated with pettiness and greed, that change is inevitable. I’ve named this place Bumi Langit [Earth Sky], and I want it to be a place where people and small groups can come and learn about natural living. 


“Permaculture all boils down to ethics, or I prefer the Islamic word adab [civility],” Iskansar said. “What is the most civilized way to live? How civilized is our relationship with others? With ourselves, with our food? Are we part of nature or the conquerors of nature?” ....


....He showed me how to milk a cow and explained that at the Bumi Langit homestead, all the cow manure is processed in tanks to extract the methane to use for cooking in the busy kitchen. The resulting slurry waste is used to fertilize the garden, which is bursting with a large variety of fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes, spinach, lettuce, chilies, eggplants, mulberries, bananas, papaya and mangostene. 

Large rabbits are kept in hutches and their droppings are used to feed earthworms that produce worm casings, the tiny twirls of soil that worms excrete, that are then used as a incredibly effective fertilizer for the shrubs and trees on the farm. 

As an agricultural practice, Iskandar’s permaculture goes against modern farming methods that depend on technology, chemistry and profit....


....“We are establishing relationships with local primary schools so that the students will then be able to teach other schoolchildren around this area about the principles of this farm and about healthy food in general,” Iskandar said. “This is food that has been produced with as little injustice as possible.” 

Iskandar uses the Islamic word dzalim, instead of “injustice.” 
“Dzalim has a deeper, a wider meaning. It covers injustice, negativity, anything that is not good and anything that inconveniences other beings by infringing on the others’ rights. That is dzalim,” he said. “Most of the food that is consumed in society is full of dzalim, beginning from the way it is produced, to the way it is distributed and even to the way it is consumed. People have lost the knowledge of living within nature.”....


....Dudy Anggawi, a poet from Bremen, Germany, joins us for lunch. He is arranging an international poetry festival in Yogyakarta this April and wants to book a lunch and educational tour of Bumi Langit for the 25 foreign guests he plans to bring to the event. I asked him why he chose Bumi Langit?