BPDPKS Points Out the Importance of Oil Palm Plantation Data

PRESIDENT Director of the Indonesia Oil Palm Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS) Dono Boestami reiterated his view about the importance of oil palm plantation data. He said, trustworthy data is necessary to support national palm oil industry on the international stage. The data will be useful for the Government to respond critics from international community, including from NGOs. “If, for example, an NGOs and European Union allege that oil palm plantations are built inside forest area, we can show them the data clearly. It goes without saying if they are attacking us now because our current data is still imperpect,” Dono said at the forum of Competency Building on National Palm Oil Industry for of Journalists and Government Public Relations in Jakarta, Wednesday (27/3/2019) as reported by Bisnis.com. Dono revealed that BPDPKS, in collaboration with the Statistics Indonesia (BPS), are compiling facts and figures about oil palm plantations in Indonesia. Currently, data published by some institutions shows different figures as each institution has its own definition of certain terms. “For example, if I’m not mistaken, in 2017 BPS recorded a 12,30 million hectares oil plam plantation in Indonesia. However, in early 2018, KPK recorded 20 million hectares, while Ministry of Agriculture said 14,03 hectares,” Dono said. ***