PALMOILMAGAZINE, BENGKULU – FFB theft is not limited to large palm oil plantation companies; it also occurs in individual plantations in the Seluma Regency. Instances have been reported in villages such as Tanjung Seluai in the South Seluma District, and Talang Prapat in the West Seluma District, among others.
Wito (58), a smallholder from Tanjung Seluai, highlighted that the price of FFB plays a significant role in exacerbating theft. Currently priced at approximately Rp 2,000/kg at the smallholder level, this has incentivized individuals to seek immediate profits by illegally harvesting from others’ plantations.
Because of the stealing, the local smallholders should harvest earlier from the schedule by hoping to minimize the losses but only harvesting the mature one.
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“We do concern about our FFB stealing and to anticipate it we have to harvest earlier and regularly do monitoring,” Wito said, as Palmoilmagazine.com quoted from Radar Bengkulu.
Some of them also marked their FFB with paint so when it would be sold to traders, the stealer would be identified.
The dilemma is that every perpetuator caught was not firmly punished because the losses of FFB stealing did not fit to legal limits, which is less than Rp 1 million though the stealing delivered losses for smallholders significantly and it was repeated. (T2)
