Investors are buying up Bali's rice fields: how the island wants to save them
Farmers in Bali are being offered as much for their land as they would earn from 10–20 years of rice harvests. That is hard to refuse, so fields keep turning into construction sites.
Provincial regulation No. 4 of 2026 limits converting rice fields to buildings and bans putting land in someone else's name (nominee ownership).
More ideas are on the table: no tax on working farmland, a heavy tax on converting it, and no electricity for illegal buildings.
What it means for buyers: a "villa with a rice-field view" can turn out to be a house on land where building was never allowed. Check the plot's zoning before you buy, and never buy through a nominee.