West Kalimantan to Gradually Replant Oil Palm Trees
PONTIANAK—Indonesian provincial government of West Kalimantan continues its oil palm replanting program and has planned carry it out gradually. The previous replanting has succesfully completed and shown significant result.
The program which is widely known as PSR is oil palm replanting program for smallholders initiated by the central government aiming to increase productivity. In this program, the Indonesia Oil Palm Plantataions Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS) has raised its grant for each farmer from Rp25 million to Rp30 million per hectare.
“PSR in our province will be carried out gradually. The previous replanting has succesfully completed and shown significant result where the seed they planted have grown to young trees,” Head of Plantations Office of Provincial Government of West Kalimantan Heronimus Hero said as quoted by Bisnis.com, Rabu, (8/7/2020).
He said, PSR has reached 2,500 hectares of land owned by smallholders from the total planned area of 14,000 ha of land. Heronimus asked the farmer to use high-quality seedlings in the replanting because bad seedlings have been proven to cause adverse effect.
High-quality seedlings will mature and yield significantly more fresh fruit bunches (FFB). Maintenance costs are also lower than using bad-quality seedlings. “Imagine, there is always a potential loss of 50 percent if we use bad seedling. That’s why we have to avoid using bad-quality seedlings,” he explained.
Replanting program in West Kalimantan is carried out in several regencies, including Sanggau, Landak and Ketapang regencies which are centre of palm oil industry in West Kalimantan. The province has 1.7 million Ha of oil palm plantations. ***
