PALMOILMAGAZINE, KUTAI TIMUR – The Sustainable Living Village (SLV) program has officially launched in Kutai Timur, East Kalimantan Province, through a collaboration between Apical, Indonesia’s leading vegetable oil company and largest palm oil exporter; the Earthworm Foundation, a non-governmental organization; and the Regency of Kutai Timur. The initiative aims to promote positive social and environmental change in the region.
SLV is an inclusive initiative involving multiple stakeholders, designed to foster sustainable living by partnering with local communities, organizations, and villagers. Its main goals are to improve living standards, protect forests, transform the supply chain, and strengthen cooperation across various sectors.
Apical is committed to leveraging its expertise and enhancing its collaboration with the Earthworm Foundation and other key partners throughout the five-year program. The initiative will be implemented in three villages—Tepian Indah, Tepian Langsat, and Tepian Makmur—which are home to over 16,200 people. These villages are recognized for their natural conservation efforts and play a crucial role in the palm oil industry, which underpins the local community’s socio-economic well-being.
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SLV would be also about to deliver knowledge, insight, and skills for the smallholders to realize sustainable agricultural practices, develop the alternatives of source of living by cultivating cocoa and also protect the natural landscape by reinforcing the commitment of every stakeholder to forest restoration and conservation.
The main component of the program would be about to empower every smallholder to adopt good agricultural practices, the best management practices in sustainable palm oil cultivation. This would support the smallholders to get cultivation documents which would be significant in the legal; access to get fund from the government, and realize Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO). Besides, the smallholders would be suggested to apply alternative fertilizers in non-chemical – base to escalate their agricultural technic.
SLV would also cover the making of cocoa demonstration plots to help them in diversifying the smallholders’ incomes. Cocoa as the prior commodity in Kutai Timur, is famous for its high quality. Besides delivering training about good agricultural practices, the program would support market access for the smallholders.
“We are very enthusiastic to start this journey with our partners to deliver transformative and sustainable changes for the villagers in Kutai Timur,” Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Manager of Apical, Agus Wiastono said, as in the official statement to Palmoilmagazine.com, Thursday (5/9/2024). He also mentioned that the program would reinforce not only the economy locally but also would develop sustainable principles in the villagers’ activity.
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Dean Affandi, Chairman of Field Program, Earthworm Foundation in Indonesia, emphasized it would be significant to collaborate to maintain the and support the villagers through sustainable supply chain practices. With the supports from Apical, Earthworm Foundation would encourage the participative land use plan or perencanaan penggunaan lahan partisipatif (PLUP), a collaborative process that would involve many stakeholders to make fair, decent, and sustainable land use plans. The program targeted to protect 10.000 hectares and plant 90.000 trees for forest conservation and restoration.
Ripto Widargo, Head of Economy and Natural Resource that represented Head of Regional Development Plan Agency Kutai Timur really supported the program. “SLV would be in the same vision and mission of Kutai Timur to increase the economic competition in agricultural – base and formulate the programs in environmental – insight. We do hope the program is the model that would be implemented in other regions,” he said.
SLV was launched in the The Regency of Aceh Singkil, Aceh Province, for the first time in February 2023 as part of Apical’s sustainable agenda until 2030. It is the same with United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Apical would be committed to support 30 villages through the program until 2030. (P2)
