PALMOILMAGAZINE, BENGKULU UTARA – The Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PFMA) recently held a Palm Oil Cultivation Techniques and Post-Harvest Training in Bengkulu. This initiative is part of the 2024 human resource development program for palm oil plantations and involved 88 smallholders from Bengkulu Utara Regency.
The training, conducted in collaboration with the General Directorate of Plantation, Ministry of Agriculture, and PT Citra Widya Education (PT CWE), took place over five days, from July 15 to 19, 2024, at Hotel Mercure Bengkulu.
PFMA and the General Directorate of Plantation are working with 14 other training institutions, with a total of 6,437 participants expected from various regions across Indonesia. The attendees represent numerous villages and sub-districts in Bengkulu Utara, including Ulok Kupai, Batik Nau, Putri Hijau, Keyear, Pinang Raya, Padang Jaya, Selebar, Giri Mulya, Argamakmur, Sukun, Air Padang, Napal Putih, Gading, and Kampung Melayu.
Also Read: PMFA and Poltek CWE Enhance Smallholder Competency with Palm Oil Training in May 2024
Deputy Director of PT Citra Widya Education, Ahmad Mahfud in his speech emphasized palm oil industries would be very important for Indonesia. “Palm oil supports the man’s needs in food, health, and alternative source of energy. That is why the industries need the supports to develop and escalate the production, and sustainable condition,” he said, as in the official statement Palmoilmagazine.com, Tuesday (16/7/2024).
Mahfud also explained that the training would be about to escalate the smallholders’ capacity in palm oil cultivation and harvest. “The program would cover two kinds of training, such as, the training for planters and scholarship for young generations. The cultivation training would cover seed preparation, planting, nursery, pest and disease contro,, and post – harvest transportation,” he said.
He hoped that the training would help every smallholder to escalate crude palm oil (CPO) quality and quantity. “Hopefully, the training would deliver blessing, easiness, and success. We do hope, the smallholders would escalate their welfare, plantation productivity, and other goodness,” Mahfud said.
Head of Plantation Agency, Regency of Bengkulu Utara represented by the Secretary of the agency, Hardiantoni said that the training would be significant to escalate the smallholders’ welfare. “Dear sirs, you should focus on the training to get insight and could be practiced in your own plantations and should be shared to others that did not join the training,” he said.
Hardiantoni acknowledged many smallholders implemented cultivation technic in bad ways. “I do hope you would get insight from every competent instructor and be active during the training. Ask if you do not know to deliver the advantages for others,” he said.
The training was officially inaugurated by Head of Food Plant, Horticulrue, and Plantation Agency, Bengkulu Province, M. Rizon. In his speech, he said that palm oil plantations in Bengkulu Province laid on about 413.950 hectares. 77% or about 319.000 hectares were the smallholders’ ones. “But many smallholders did not know how to conduct the harvest and cultivation technic well. The training would be very important for them,” he said.
Rizon continued, the smallholders faced many challenges in the plantation cultivation, such as, the new planting, planting trees in distance, the nursery. “From the field facts and condition, some smallholders planted palm oil together with other plants. In fact, palm oil is monoculture. This has something to do with CPO production,” he said.
He hoped, the training would escalate their insight and plantation production, and also their welfare. “The participants are the selected ones and would be the successor for other smallholders to implement the right cultivation and harvest technic,” he said. (P2)
