Koster moves to tighten controls on Bali farmland conversion

Denpasar — Bali Governor Wayan Koster has moved to tighten controls on the conversion of productive farmland, pointing to a sharp decline in the island’s rice-field area and the need to safeguard food security and the subak irrigation system.

According to local media reports, Koster outlined the policy during an audience with student leaders from the Faculty of Agriculture at Udayana University at his official residence in Denpasar in late August 2026. He cited data from Bali’s statistics agency showing that rice-field area has fallen from about 78,626 hectares in 2017 to around 68,078 hectares in recent years.

Koster said the provincial government has introduced a series of legal instruments to curb land conversion and protect productive plots used for food crops, horticulture and plantations. He linked these measures to efforts to maintain Bali’s traditional subak irrigation networks, which are increasingly under pressure from tourism-related development in districts such as Badung, Denpasar, Gianyar and Tabanan.

New regional regulation and prior instruction

The governor’s policy is anchored in Bali Regional Regulation No. 4 of 2026 on the control of conversion of productive land and the prohibition of nominee-based transfers of land ownership. The regulation, signed in February 2026, is intended to “lock” the zoning status of productive agricultural land, tighten permit issuance and provide administrative and potential criminal sanctions for violations.

Prior to the regional regulation coming into force, Koster issued Governor’s Instruction No. 5 of 2025

Provincial officials say the combination of the 2025 instruction and the 2026 regulation is designed to halt the trend of rice fields being converted into villas, tourism accommodation and other commercial buildings, and to close loopholes that have allowed foreigners to control land through nominee arrangements.

Impacts on farmers and tourism businesses

Bali’s shrinking rice area has coincided with pressure on farmer incomes and the traditional subak system, according to Koster and agricultural stakeholders. Bali’s farmer terms-of-trade index, a measure of the price farmers receive relative to the costs they pay, has been reported as lower than the national average, underlining concerns about the economic viability of farming on the island.

Students from Udayana University’s Faculty of Agriculture raised both land-conversion pressures and a regeneration crisis in the farming community during their audience with the governor, calling for stronger support to keep younger generations involved in agriculture. The student executive body has promoted events such as an agriculture expo and festival to showcase local fruits and other commodities and to encourage agricultural regeneration.

To support farm incomes and create market demand, the province is pushing tourism businesses to comply with Governor Regulation No. 99 of 2018, which governs the marketing and use of Bali’s agricultural, fishery and other local products. Provincial statements and local media reports say there are plans to strengthen this framework into a regional regulation and to use a regional-owned enterprise as an offtaker, linking farmers with hotels, restaurants and cafés.

Koster has also publicly urged property developers and housing builders to use land more efficiently and avoid productive agricultural areas, arguing that only non-productive land should be targeted for new residential and tourism projects in line with the 2026 land-conversion regulation.

Sources

• NusaBali
• Bali Provincial Government official site
• Balipost
• Detik Bali
• Radio Republik Indonesia (RRI) Denpasar
• LingkariNews
• Bisnis.com Bali
• ATNews
• Udayana University student publication (Sinmawa Unud)
• IDN Times Bali