InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA - The members of Serikat Petani Kelapa Sawit (SPKS) in District of Sekadau, West Kalimantan Province have different story because they are in process to get Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) certificate after getting Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certificate.

The smallholders that join in Koperasi Persada Engkesik Lestari in Village of Engkesik, Sub district of Sekadau Hilir reached about 200 members and have about 300 hectares of palm oil plantations.

Chairman of SPKS District of Sekadau, Bernadus Mohtar said, the certification process in the cooperation is for two schemes, they are, RSPO and ISPO.

It has been running for the past one year and supported by SPOS Indonesia Yayasan Kehati to prepare the process. It started from the data map of smallholders (by name, by address, and by spatial/polygon), dealing with Cultivation Document, empowering institution, and training about cooperation management.

“We also did trainings about good agricultural practices (GAP), such as, fertilization, spraying, nursery, harvesting, integrated pest control, pesticide application, and others until we got facilitation of partnership with the companies around,” he recently said to InfoSAWIT.

He continued, the toughest challenge in ISPO certification process is the area legal for the smallholders. For instance, we actually have mapped about 400 smallholders in the village but many of us do not get legal documents while ISPO required the legal ones.

“We hope the government would listen to us and prioritize us in area legal besides the fund support to get ISPO certification,” Bernadus said. (T2)

For more please read InfoSAWIT, November 2022