InfoSAWIT, PARENGGEAN - 20 smallholders in Koperasi Unit Desa (KUD) Tri Daya in Sub district of Parenggean, Regency of Kotawaringin Timur did application tests of plantation traceability - ITracebility for about four months. The application was developed by PT Surveyor Indonesia (ID Survey) as the way to qualify the close standards in European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) to prevent the negative impacts from the deforestation in the globe, particularly in palm oil sector in Indonesia.
Certification Manager of KUD Tri Daya, Rohmat mentioned that the test would be part of the preparation to qualify EUDR. The smallholders are obliged to type down data production and selling every single day as part of the fresh fruit bunch (FFB) traceability system.
“The application would be always update and even simplified so that the smallholders would manage it,” Rohmat said, as InfoSAWIT quoted from Fortasbi, Saturday (31/8/2024).
He thought, the training about the application was in the second phase. In the first one or about the first three months, the smallholders were suggested to fulfill their data regularly and being monitored. In the second phase, they would be monitored forth a month after some application features got changed.
“Many questioned in the first phase but as time went by, the smallholders started to understand that FFB traceability would be very important namely because KUD Tri Daya got Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certificate,” he said.
He also mentioned that the union should get more members and expand their plantations so when EUDR would really run, the smallholders would get no losses.
“We hope after the smallholders qualify EUDR terms and conditions, there would be incentive to get because they should fulfill the application to confirm that teir FFB production would not be mixed with untraceable FFB,” Rohmat said.
He emphasized ID survey had some application simplification from what the smallholders suggested. One of them was the e-mail of the group as the substitution of personal e-mail even though each smallholder got their own account and password.
“The application would be always tested. Each group should get five men that would understand the application to tell the others,” he said. The application would reject unclear data, such as, overload production report.
Prior, the representatives of European Union visited KUD Tri Daya to directly see the smallholders in the region cultivate their plantations, areas, and environment.
For information, palm oil plantations in Indonesia laid on about 16,38 million hectares, and 41 percent or 6,72 million hectaers were cultivated by the independent smallholders. “KUD Tri Daya got EUDR socialization and we were not surprised,” Rohmat said. (T2)
