Palm Oil College Graduates Can be Recruited to Assist Farmers

JAKARTA— Palm oil college graduates are recommended to help oil palm farmers in replanting program due to lack of farm field assistants. They have good working knowledge of palm oil cultivation practices, especially those who have completed scholarship program funded by the Indonesia Oil Palm Plantations Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS).

Speaking in an online discussion forum, hosted by the Indonesian Oil Palm Smallholders Association (Apkasindo), some farmers expressed their concern about the need of well qualified farm field assistants to help them replant their plantation under a government-initiated program of Peremajaan Sawit Rakyat (PSR), an oil palm replanting program for smallholders.

BPDPKS welcome such recommendation. “Human resource is the key factor. Graduates who has completed scholarship program funded by BPDPKS can be recruited to be farm field assistants. I think this is good recommendation and Apkasindo has implemented it,” Anwar Sunari, BPDPKS Director of Fund Collection of said.

General Director of Plantation at the Ministry of Agriculture Kasdi Subagyono added that local plantation offices can go through with the recommendation. “Local plantation offices can recruit them to help farmers handling both administrative and technical works,” Kasdi said.

Currently, BPDPKS, in cooperation with several palm oil educational institutions, offers promising students the chance to pursue undergraduate and diploma studies at selected universities majoring in palm oil. This scholarship program aims to prepares people to work in oil palm agricultural jobs. It is designed based on the Indonesian National Jobs Competency Standard (SKKNI) that provides job-specific technical study as well as a variety knowledge and work experiences to introduce students to a variety of relevant jobs. ***