Monday 18 January 2016

GROWERS’ PALM PLANTATIONS TO BE REFORMED



So far the Government admitted the had not been able to persuade palm grower to increase production output, And big company were increasing their productivity. Unless drastic action was taken, production output of the average palm growers in Indonesia was low. Dwi Praptomo Sudiatmoko, the Director of Annual Plant, Ministry of Agriculture made this statement.

Palm farmers had proven themselves to contribute to contribute to national forex reserves. There never was any agriculture illuminators for palm plantations and they all go their own way.

Many people’s palm plantation built in 1980 must be rejuvenated today unfortunately farmers could not afford to do so. Besides over the first four years farmer had no income to live on.

The credit for food resilience was no solution to the problem because the procedure was extremely complicated and farmers were unable to access credit resource. As execution was below target, this Credit Plan had been eliminated by Government and now more affordable credit plan was being schemed up.

“Plantation rejuvenation is a pressing necessity, without replanting people’s palm plantation areas would shrink. The role of them Palm Plantation Fund Management Board is expected to solve problems.” he said.

Use of illegal seeds was today still at large. It happened in the year 1990’s when the people saw PIR farmers being success full. At that time there were 3 companies producing palm seeds and they could not meet demand.

But now there were 11 seed producer, their output was not just sufficient but surplus. But counterfeit seeds were still in circulation. “I have asked the 11 producers to make it easy for famers to obtain seeds. Seed producer corporate had been only serving big companies but I ask them to open access for farmers to obtain seeds through their CSR channel”.

The Government would not only stop circulation of illegal, low quality seeds but would uproot people’s plantation using illegal seed. “We would not let them grow to juvenile stage because the productivity would remain low. We would help would help farmers to uproot their low quality plants and replace them with premium seed”, he said.

Good palm was cross insemination between Durax and Pisfera to become Elais anit could only be done by big corporations. Cross breeding would produce premium palm. Palm seeds that fell from the trees and taken and sold by counterfeiters were probably 25 & Dura and 25% Dura Pisifera so they would never be fruits full while Elais bear fruits at low productivity.

CPO was a commodity mostly exported therefore the environment aspect was not ignorable. The Blue Economy Trend which prevailed in the word today must be observed by palm growers by changing wastage into value added products.

Infrastructure for palm plantations needed reformation. Because poor infra structure was a handicap like connectivity between plantation and factory or between factory and harbor. Plants produced efficiently on farm but inefficient by transportation would make on stakleholders scream for help especially when price as low.

Research and Development of Palm in Indonesia must be enhanced, especially on the downstream side. Today the oldest R&D Institution was the Palm Research Center under PT Riset Perkebunan Nusantara but the activities were now on the commercial side.

Other Research & Development Centers: Plantation Research Center, R7D Center of the Minister of Agriculture were given the mandate to research palm, but as it was only 3 year old not too many was resulted. Many private companies had set up their own R&D center but were mostly for solving problems faced by the company. For example Sampoerna, they had  the biological pest control center but was only applicable foe Sampoerna need themselves because the microbe content was only found is Sampoerna plantation. (SS) 

Business New - September 11, 2015 

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