InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – After successfully developing palm oil industries in national scale, Wilmar started joining business in food sector namely paddy. To develop food sector, the company does partnership with paddy farmers, just like in palm oil sector.
Rice Business Head PT Wilmar Padi Indonesia, Saronto Soebagio said the reason why Wilmar joins food sectors is because the paddy farmers in the sectors might not be welfare. This is less interesting sector for millennial generations. “Only few young men want to be farmers while nowadays farmers are about 55 years old,” he said when breaking the fast with some media that InfoSAWIT joined, Friday (22/3/2024).
Paddy fields now get narrower. Saronto told that if there is no young generations to be farmers, for the next 5 to 6 years, Indonesia would be net rice importer. “We want to welfare the farmers, encourage their income, at least, hardly the same with regional minimum wage.
Not only that, PT Wilmar Padi Indonesia (WPI) is always committed to get partnership with the paddy farmers through Farmer Engagement Program (FEP). By February 2024, the paddy field areas in partnership with laid on about 20 thousand hectares in 19 regencies in East Java, Banten, Lampung, North Sumatera, and South Sumatera.
The numbers significantly increased from the fields in 2023 that laid on about 8.903 hectares. By February 2024, the company was in cooperation with 16.928 farmers. The program started in 2021 and the field in cooperation just laid on about 617 hectares. “The program does run well because of the supports from regional governments, plantation agencies, agri input companies, and farmers’ groups,” Saronto said.
In the program, the farmers got three facilities, the first, agri input, which is, agriculture insurance and agricultural production infrastructures. WPI is in cooperation with regional government that delivered subsidy for the farmers. Besides, the company took government and private insurance companies. The second, good agricultural practices (GAP) implementation. From many field experiences, the farmers’ grain production escalated 15 percent in average after being developed.
Saronto hoped the partnership in FEP would escalate to be 30 thousand hectares by the late of this year. This should be the same with the government’s program to escalate grain production in this country. “We do the best to realize the government’s program – to escalate food security,” he said.
He also told WPI would take advantages on by product to be downstream ones to deliver additional values, such as, rice bran, husk, and groats. The side products should be taken for advantages to be rice flavor until the substitution for coal for having high calories. (T2)
