Palm Oil Single Data Consolidation to be Completed by August

THE Indonesian government has set a target to complete palm oil data consolidation by the end of August 2019. The government reaffirmed this commitment at a coordination meeting in the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, Friday (10/5/2019). Agrarian and Spatial Planning Minister Sofyan Djalil said the meeting ordered Geospatial Information Agency (BIG), the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (Lapan), the Ministry of Agrarian and Spatial Planning to consolidate to form single data of palm oil plantation using single land area measurement method. This consolidation is expected to form single national palm oil plantation data that will be widely acceptable. “Lapan and BIG have made strong commitment to complete the consolidation process by the end of August this year,” Sofyan said, Friday (10/5/2019) as reported by Detik.com. Currently, data published by stakeholders in this sector shows different figures as each of them has its own definition of certain terms. The trustworthy data is necessary to support the industry on the international stage as well as to respond the lack of understanding and mistrust of the industry that resulted in discrimination against palm oil in the European Union, particularly over deforestation. “Current data show different figures. This is what we are going to verify, to see what might have happened. There should have been single fact, single data,” Sofyan added. ***