PALMOILMAGAZINE, PANDEGLANG — Misoperation at a private palm oil mill (POM) in Banten Province caused long lines of trucks transporting fresh fruit bunches (FFB) to two POMs of PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN), including POM Kertajaya in Pandeglang and POM Cikasungka in the Bogor Regency. This disruption made it difficult for many smallholders in Banten and West Java provinces to sell their palm oil production.
To address this issue, the management of PTPN IV PalmCo, which operates the Kertajaya and Cikasungka mills, temporarily purchased the smallholders’ production in these regions. This was intended as a short-term solution to alleviate congestion at the mills. However, the long lines persisted as FFB trucks continued to exceed the mills’ capacities.
“It has been a week since the private POM has been misoperational. There are only three POMs in Banten and West Java—two owned by state enterprises and one by the private sector,” said Ukhri Hatmoko, Plantation Manager of POM Kertajaya, in a statement on Sunday, as quoted by Palmoilmagazine.com from RMOL.id on Monday (29/10/2024).
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Ukhri also noted that an agreement with smallholders, facilitated by the Indonesian Palm Oil Farmers Association (Apkasindo), was made to help increase FFB supply and resolve the delivery issues.
“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. (P2)
