InfoSAWIT, PEKANBARU – 24.444 hectares palm oil plantations in Riau Province got smallholders replanting program (SRP). The initiative successfully delivered advantages for 13.665 families, helped them to escalate plantation productivity and create positive impacts for the local economy.

Governor of Riau, Edy Natar Nasution said that the fund in SRP was from Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PFMA). Until now Riau got the fund about Rp 1 trillion as the support to implement the program.

“SRP in Riau would always run for the consideration that many palm oil plantations need replanting,” Nasution said, Thursday, 11 January 2024, as InfoSAWIT quoted from the page of Media Center Riau.

Nasution also mentioned, in 2022 SRP faced issue because the terms and conditions required that SRP should be free from peat areas. Most of the plantations in the province were in peat and the central government should publish new regulation.

In 2023, the Regulation of Minister of Agriculture Number 19 was revised and this delivered chance to reconduct SRP in the province. “Until now SRP in Riau keeps running and would be delivering advantages for the people,” Nasution said.

He thought, SRP has the main goal to substitute unproductive palm oil trees, not to get or cultivate new plantations. The central government delivered budget Rp 30 million per hectare, escalated from Rp 25 million in the previous within four hectares maximally per smallholder. The fund derived from PFMA that it got the fund from palm oil export citation. (T2)