PALMOILMAGAZINE, PONTIANAK – Togu Rudian Saragih, Head of Cultivation at the Directorate of Palm Oil, Ministry of Agriculture, stressed the importance of clearly understanding plantation partnerships. Speaking at a meeting attended by planters, government representatives, and other stakeholders, Saragih highlighted that such partnerships must be mutually beneficial, respectful, and responsible.
“Plantation partnerships should empower businesses by fostering mutual respect, delivering shared benefits, and reinforcing each other,” he said during the 4th Indonesian Palm Oil Smallholder Conference & Expo (IPOSC) 2024, attended by Palmoilmagazine.com on Friday (20/9/2024) in Pontianak.
He referred to Law No. 39/2014 on Plantations, specifically Chapter 57, which regulates legal plantation partnerships in Indonesia. Saragih noted that these partnerships can positively enhance collaboration between plantation companies, smallholders, workers, and local communities.
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But Saragih acknowledged the partnership was not fully implemented optimally. “Many stakeholders faced unsatisfaction about the roles of the government about the monitoring and agreement evaluation about partnership,” he said. The government itself should be massively responsible to confirm that every partnership agreement would run as the available regulation and transparent principles. The Regulation of Minister of Agriculture Number 98 / 2013 about Plantatin Business Permit Guidelines should be the significant reference in this case.
During the discussion, many participants questioned about the partnership implementation namely about smallholders replanting program. one participant said that the terms and condition to get polygon map in SRP should be easier. In the response to this case, Saragih said that the technical development has been clearly regulated and the government provided budget and developers to confirm that the program would run well.
Besides, many discussed about the sources of superior seeds and proposed that the seeds should be in the form of plantation partnership to be directly purchased from cooperation, not from other producers.
He also mentioned that there have been regulations about the sources and producers of superior seeds. Every seed should be certified and labeled to confirm the quality. “This is the significant thing to confirm that the seeds to be planted in the plantation would have the good quality to get long-term productivity,” he said.
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Chairman of Policy Compartment and SRP Socialization, Indonesian Palm Oil Association (IPOA), Muhammad Iqbal said that the partnership in plantation sectors should be fair and balanced, just like a husband and a wife (in a family).
“The ideal is that the partnership should focus not only for one side – profit only but also there should be transparency in dividing the results,” he said and continued that it needed evaluation to plantation companies’ development and financial reports, that might not be optimally conducted.
Iqbal continued General Directorate of Plantation was in process to accomplish technical issues about partnership and SRP. It is hoped, next week would be about to sign the agreement that would involve many parties both in the agency and partnership forms. “Everyone of us hope that this would successful run and deliver advantages for the smallholders and plantation sectors in a whole,” Iqbal said.
Wan Mutiara Fahmi that represented Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PO PFMA) said that the institution would be committed to support many programs that planters’ organization would propose. The supports would cover SRP and infrastructures for the plantations.
Wan Mutiara also said the agency would always deliver helps both in SRP that agencies would implement and other partnership forms. “We just want to remind that every phase to propose SRP, such as, taking polygon coordinate, there would be officers to develop from the local agencies and they should be active. The support would be funded by PO PFMA,” Wan Mutiara said.
Wan also continued that the roles of PFMA to every verification, would not mean to deliver difficulties but to facilitate plantation institutions so that every process would run well and transparently. “We are here to ease every process, not to deliver difficulties. In the future, we hope that the system would be always update for the welfare of the smallholders and the sustainable palm oil industries,” he said.
In the event, PO PFMA supported every initiative that had something to do with SRP and plantation infrastructure development in many regions. By involving developers and operational fund that the agency prepared, PO PFMA would be optimist that the programs would positively deliver impacts for the smallholders in Indonesia. (P2)
