A small group of organic farmers in Indonesia are revolutionising the way the country grows rice and thanks to an Australian-educated entrepreneur, they have managed to tap into a lucrative market.

More than a decade ago, the farmers in Tasikmalaya in West Java noticed the soil on their small plots of land was becoming increasingly unfertile.

"The land had too many chemicals, it was too unhealthy," says Saeful Bahri, who has been farming in Tasikmalaya all his life.

He is the head farmer of more than 2,300 farmers now growing organic rice in the area.

The farmers knew they had to change the way they worked, so they did their research and adapted a rice growing method called 'system of rice intensification'.

It is a revolutionary farming method that uses less water because the rice fields are not flood irrigated.

Seven kilograms of seed are used to plant an area of four acres, compared to 15 to 20 tonnes of seed used under the old method.

Yields are also up about 20 per cent, with one hectare of land producing seven tonnes of rice per season

But the farmers' problem was that even though they had a premium product, they had nowhere to sell it and they were being paid a pittance from local buyers.

Saeful Bahri is the head farmer in the Tasikmalaya region. ( ABC )

In fact, Mr Bahri says that they did not even realise the true value of organic rice until watching TV.

"We were concerned originally because the prices that we get for the organic rice locally wasn't very good, but we found out from the TV and the media that organic produce is actually quite expensive," he said through a translator.

Then came 34-year-old Emily Sutanto, an Australian-educated Indonesian with a Masters degree in international business.

Ms Sutanto had been away from her homeland since she was nine years old.

"I wasn't going to come back to Indonesia," she said.

"That was until one of my Dad's friends told me about about these farmers who grew beautiful organic rice but they didn't have market access so they cannot export the rice.

"They're getting poorer and poorer because of the existence of loan shark traders who buy the rice with a very low price and sells it to private traders for high prices."

'Beyond organic'

Ms Sutanto says she wanted to meet the farmers in person.

"I went to the field and I met the farmers and I was really touched because they were so enthusiastic and spirited, and I was pleasantly surprised that they were using a method that's beyond organic, which is the system of rice intensification," she said.

"One of the key differences is that you don't put any water, you don't flood the field when you grow the rice and that has a lot of benefits in terms of the health benefits for the farmers because there's no malaria, but also for the environment because when you don't flood the field you don't have any methane production and that has a beneficial impact for the global warming as well."

Ms Sutanto says the enthusiasm of the farmers and the high quality of their product convinced her that she had to help them reach the international market.

Mr Bahri says Ms Sutanto changed their fortunes.

"We were happy because Emily was able to fight for us and she really cared about the organic rice industry, so she hooked us up with exporters internationally and we were able to get a better price than the local price," he said.

The first export was in August 2009. The farmers now earn almost double what they would if they grew conventional rice.

But it is labour intensive and it is slow, methodical work.

Mr Bahri employs five people to work on his one hectare plot.

In all, there are 28 groups of farmers spread out in eight villages around Tasikmalaya.

Saeful Bahri says demand is rapidly increasing and the farmers are always trying to improve their yields.

He says more farmers are keen to join, but it is still difficult to get organic certification.

"The mindset must change," he tells me.

"There are many people who are interested in what we do, we have many people coming to study what we do from everywhere from Aceh to Papua, all over Indonesia.

"I do see it developing widely now, as there are many people who follow the system.

"People adopt it because it makes sense and also the system adapts to local potential."

Amy Bainbridge's visit to Indonesia was funded by DFAT, as the Australian winner of this year's Elizabeth O'Neill Journalism Award.