Govt to Issue Technical Recommendation of Oil Palm Replanting for 45 Thousand Ha

MINISTRY of Agriculture has set a target to issue technical recommendation for replanting 45,000 hectare of oil palm plantation in 2018. “Our target is to issue technical recommendation for 45,000 hectare,” Director General of Plantation at Ministry of Agriculture Bambang said at a Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with the theme Smallholders’ Oil Palm Plantation Replanting Program 2019 Outlook: Hope and Challenge in Bandung, Friday (7/12/2018). Bambang said the government has cut down requirements to be met by smallholders who will join the replanting program. So far, the absence of the certificate has been an obstacle for the program. Currently, 2.4 million hectares of 5.6 million hectares smallholders’ plantation need replanting. The government has set a replanting plan for 185,000 hectares of oil palm plantation in the country this year. The Indonesian Oil Palm Estate Fund (BPDPKS) has disbursed replanting fund Rp360.45 billion by early December 2018. In this replanting program, BPDPKS support farmers by disbursing grant of Rp25 million per hectares. Bambang said there are 650,000 hectare plantation need to be replanted soon this year. About 502.332 hectare of them are old trees and 128.508 hectare of them are trees with low productivity. He also said that it is not easy to convince farmer to join the program. “In that case, the farmers need assistance to join the replanting program,” he said. At the same occasion, President Director of PT Riset Perkebunan Nusantara Teguh Wahyudi revealed that lands ownership status remains a big issue for farmers to join the replanting program. “This is important since the ownership status is required to join the program,” Teguh said. A part from that, establishing cooperative is also important as farmers are also mandated to join cooperative or working group before joining replanting program. In this cooperative, farmers may work together with others to meet all requirements. “A cooperative that adopts Good Corporate Governance (GCG) is needed to invite farmers’ participation and to build relationship with palm oil companies,” Teguh said. In this case, establishing a working group in every regencies or provinces will be a good solution. The working group will consist of representatives of all institutions that are involved in the replanting program in every regencies/provinces. The group will be established by a regent/governor with reference to the decree of General Directorate of Plantation Number 155/Kpts/ KB.120/4/2018. *** (Agrofarm)