InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Ministry of Agriculture through General Directorate of Plantation emphasized its commitment to increase the smallholders’ plantation productivity and sustainability to welfare the smallholders themselves. In the national scale coordination meeting of Lembaga Pengembangan Pertanian Pengurus Besar Nahdlatul Ulama (LPP-PBNU) and the launching of "Sawit Goes to Pesantren," many stakeholders gathered, discussed the plantation contribution, particularly palm oil to reinforce the economy nationally.
General Director in duty of Plantation, Heru Tri Widarto appreciated the active roles of PBNU through LPP-PBNU to encourage the people to get participation in the agricultural sectors. Heru said that it would be significant to get sustainability in plantation sub sector as the main contributor in economy namely when the uncertainty condition globally took place.
“The economy of Indonesia is supported by plantation commodities that hardly contributed 90% from non-oil and gas exports and palm oil would be the major commodity. In 2023, the exports reached US$ 33 billion and by June 2024 they reached US$ 14,89 billion,” he said, as in the official statement, as InfoSAWIT quoted, Tuesday (29/10/2024).
Even though palm oil kept showing the big potential, Heru thought, there would be challenges to increase the smallholders’ plantation productivity that reached 3 tons of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) per hectare per year. It was not ideal. General Directorate of Plantation would do the best to solve it by having collaboration with many parties, including LPP-PBNU. The government has implemented smallholders replanting program, trainings to escalate the smallholders’ technical skills to realize the optimal plantation productivity.
He hoped the people and LPP-PBNU would be in cooperation to solve the challenges in smallholders’ plantations. “Food and energy independency would be the main and significant aspects to welfare the people. By having the collaboration, we would like to encourage the people to actively play their roles to optimize theirs,” he said.
In the meeting, “Sawit Goes to Pesantren” was officially launched. It would prioritize the roles of ‘pesantren’ or boarding schools as the centers to get economic empowerment in palm oil – base. By the initiative, the boarding schools should be the places to develop the smallholders’ capacity, deliver education for the students and the people about the economic chances from palm oil sectors.
Heru also emphasized it would be significant to get the concrete output from the coordination meeting to develop sustainable palm oil sectors in Indonesia by hoping that the discussion and collaboration among the government, the civil organizations, and the people themselves (smallholders) would escalate the plantation productivity and expand food and energy materials.
By the strategies, Ministry of Agriculture hoped smallholders’ palm oil plantations would escalate the people’s welfare massively and reinforce food and energy security nationally. (T2)
