PALMOILMAGAZINE, PASAMAN BARAT – The Regency of Pasaman Barat in West Sumatra Province plans to enhance the productivity of smallholder palm oil plantations through a Smallholders Replanting Program (SRP) covering 750 hectares.
This initiative will be funded by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Indonesian Republic through the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PFMA).
Afrizal, the acting head of the Plantation and Livestock Agency in Pasaman Barat, emphasized the importance of the SRP, noting that many smallholder plantations are over 24 years old and their productivity has declined.
Also Read: West Pasaman to Expand Smallholders Replanting Program
He explained that the SRP aims to increase plantation productivity, which is currently less than 10 tons per hectare per year without the program. The initiative focuses on improving plant varieties and enhancing the welfare of smallholders.
“According to the Regulation of Minister of Finance Number 84 / 2017, SRP fund would be about to escalate plantation productivity and maintain optimization of palm oil plantations,” he said, as Palmoilmagazine.com quoted from Antara, Monday (22/7/2024).
Since 2018, Pasaman Barat has been implementing SRP with 2.009 hectares in total. There were socializations for smallholders and the regency to confirm that the program would be running well. The proposal to get SRP should qualify some terms and conditions, such as, the plants should be more than 25 years, the production was less than 10 tons per hectares, the plantations were planted by fake seeds, and would cover minimally 50 hectares in 10 kilometer – radius.
It is simpler to get SRP by proposing through digital application. The verification would cover the smallholders, regency, province, and central government level. Besides, SRP would be supported by having documens from National Land Agency, Forest Area Management Agency Region 1 Medan – to confirm that the areas to get SRP should not be the companies’ business rights or forest regions.
For the smallholders have about 126.934 hectares palm oil plantations in the regency, this would massive. Until now there have been about two percent of the numbers got SRP. The regional government hoped it would sustainably be running in every year to support sustainability and escalating the smallholders’ plantation productivity. (P2)
