PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – H. Heri Susanto, Chairman of KUD Panji Rukun in Teluk Panji 2 Village, Kampung Rakyat Sub-district, Labuhan Batu Selatan Regency (Labusel), North Sumatera Province, and Chairman of Jaringan Petani Sawit Berkelanjutan Indonesia (JaPSBI), has urged the president to delay the decision to expand the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PFMA) responsibilities to include cocoa and coconut.
He believes that PFMA should concentrate solely on palm oil to effectively implement the smallholders replanting program (SRP) and meet its targets.
Susanto noted that the SRP is a highly complex program with numerous conditions, making it challenging for both the government and smallholders to achieve their goals. Despite claims of abundant funds within PFMA, effectively reallocating these resources to palm oil initiatives, including SRP and infrastructure projects, has proven difficult.
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Heri Susanto said, KUD Panji Rukun is the union that was established from the transmigration program. With the area status out of the forest regions, or business rights, the cooperation should actually get the legal status. But he mentioned when they wanted to propose SRP this year, they had to multiply the additional conditions from Badan Pengelolaan Keuangan Haji (BPKH), Badan Nasional Sertifikat Profesi (BNSP) and Badan Pertanahan Nasional (BPN) even though KUD Panji Rukun has been a legal institution since 1996 and every member gets the title deed.
As the result, when the cooperation wanted to get fund from PFMA to get SRP, it was difficult. “We have chopped the trees, just wanted to pay the contractor of heavy tool. But the fund could not be taken until what we did was useless,” Heri said. Chairman of KUD Sentosa in Village of Teluk Panji 3, Sub district of Kampung Rakyat, Regency of Labuel said too.
Heri emphasized it would be significant for the government to focus on SRP and infrastructure program until they finished. He also proposed palm oil seeds should be provided by the plasma companies to purchase the smallholders’ plantation production. “This would help the government and deliver welfare for the smallholders. SRP would spend much,” he said. (P2)
