InfoSAWIT, PANDEGLANG — Mis-operation of private palm oil mill (POM) in Banten Province made trucks that transported fresh fruit bunch (FFB) in long line to two POMs of PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN), such as, POM Kertajaya in Pandeglang and POM Cikasungka in the Regency of Bogor. Many smallholders in Banten and West Java province were difficult to sell their plantation production.

The management of PTPN IV PalmCo, that operates POM Kertajaya and Cikasungka purchased the smallholders’ production in the two regions. This would be the temporary solution to not get more lines in the FFB transportation. But the long line still occurred because FFB trucks got more out of the mills’ areas.

“It has been a week for the private POM got misoperational. There are only three POMs in Banten and West Java – two belong to the Enterprises and one belongs to the private sector,” Ukhri Hatmoko, Plantation Manager of POM Kertajaya said, Sunday, as InfoSAWIT quoted from RMOL.id, Monday (29/10/2024).

Ukhri also mentioned that there was agreement with the smallholders that Asosiasi Petani Kelapa Sawit Indonesia (Apkasindo) facilitated to increase FFB supply to solve the delivery issue.

“At first, the smallholders’ FFB transportation would be only 250 tons per day but we should increase to be 300 tons per day to get the independent and plasma smallholders’ production including from those that only supplied to the private POM,” he said.

Though the numbers got increased, POM Kertajaya and Cikasungka could only produce 60 tons and 30 tons FFB per hour. This made the line unavoidable.

“There are long lines still, more than 150 trucks,” Ukhri said.

Director of Operational PTPN IV PalmCo, Rizal H. Damanik said that the company would maximize the mill capacity to help the smallholders that got the impacts from the mis-operation of the private mill. “We would do the best to minimize the line in our mills namely in Pandeglang," Rizal said.

In a whole the two mills of PTPN, actually, could process FFB from the smallholders in Banten but the broken private mill would remain significant for they did purchase smallholders’ FFB in the region.

This encouraged the management of PalmCo to get collaboration with the smallholders and the local governments to get FFB distribution normal again. (T2)