InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA - By the late of April 2024, “Kick Off” SRP planting in partnership with Indonesian Palm Oil Association (IPOA) and intercrops with paddy gogo was in Batulicin, South Kalimantan Province. It was the significant moment to encourage the program. The partnership between IPOA and smallholders would be one key aspect to implement SRP with the plasma plantations of KUD Gajah Mada as the real pilot project of the initiative.

Even though the smallholders play the vital roles in palm oil industries, their plantation productivity is less than the big private plantations or the government’s plantations. But with the supports from the government through Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PFMA), many parties would do the best to escalate the smallholders’ plantation productivity.

SRP program is also supported by General Directorate of Plantation Ministry of Agriculture by publishing recommendation for 6 thousand hectares of the smallholders’ plantations in South Kalimantan Province. This would cover to substitute unproductive trees by planting high quality – seeds and implementing good agricultural practices to escalate the productivity and harvest quality.

Chairman of IPOA, Eddy Martono said that SRP in partnership is not about to escalate palm oil plantation productivity but also support food security nationally. “Integrated program by planting paddy gogo would deliver double advantages for the local and escalate smallholders’ welfare,” he said.

The support from PFMA would be in the form of delivering funds for 52 thousand hectares, the candidates of smallholders’ plantations. It would involve about 150 planters’ institutions. About 1.800 hectares would be part of SRP program in partnership. It showed the same commitment to escalate plantation productivity and smallholders’ welfare in Indonesia.

SRP in intercrops with paddy gogo in South Kalimantan would be the real thing to optimize plantation area and escalate food production. With many supports, including from the government and IPOA, it is hoped the program would positively deliver impacts for the smallholders and the people in a whole.

Eddy continued, the program would only run for some time or as long as palm oil canopy does not get wider (and shadow the surface of soil). It would be really running in replanting program only.

But he said, the program would raise issues because both the smallholders and stakeholders may not experience in realizing the program. “That is why it needs development from the government,” he recently said to InfoSAWIT.

In association with paddy gogo seeds, Eddy sid, the government through Ministry of Agriculture or related agriculture agency, should provide. IPOA has no source of the seeds. He also acknowledged that the program would be running in around 512 thousand hectares.

“It is hoped the program would help the smallholders’ income while waiting for their palm oil trees to produce. On the other hand, this would help the government provide food or paddy,” Eddy said. (*)

Source: Majalah InfoSAWIT, May 2024