PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – The palm oil industry, spanning from upstream to downstream sectors, is a major driver of national economic development in the agro-based sector. It supports approximately 4.2 million jobs, provides livelihoods for about 20.8 million people, and generates around Rp. 450 trillion in annual revenue, with downstream products contributing significantly to this figure.
In a recent speech, General Director of Agro Industry Putu Juli Ardika, represented by Director of Plantation and Forest Product Industry Setia Diarta, highlighted that the economic value of the palm oil sector, from upstream to downstream, exceeds Rp. 750 trillion annually. This represents 3.5% of Indonesia’s 2023 gross domestic product (GDP), which totals Rp. 20,892 trillion.
“If palm oil and its derivative exports were taken out of the total exports nationally, there would be gap of trade balance,” he said in an event that discussed palm oil technology innovation and Medbun Award 2024 in Bandung, in the midst of July 2024.
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Setia continued this showed that palm oil dominantly contributed to the economic constellation of this nation, significantly played its roles to the economic development regionally, and could maintain rupiah exchange balance to other currency.
That is why to maintain palm oil production namely for the independent smallholders, and also contribute to the national – scale economy, Serikat Petani Kelapa Sawit (SPKS) would be always committed to escalate smallholders’ life quality and plantation productivity in Indonesia by delivering training and development programs consistently. The organization that has got thousands of members directly gets field implementation to understand the real issue and urgent needs that the farmers face.
For what SPKS had done, Medbun Award 2024 was handed over to SPKS in “Organisasi Petani yang Bekerja Nyata Melatih Petani Sawit,” Thursday (18/7) in Bandung, West Java Province.
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Chairman of SPKS, Sabarudin said by having the award, the organization would always deliver advantages and service for its members, and escalate the performance to improve palm oil goverance nationally.
“By having the award, we do hope to escalate the organization’s performance, to improve palm oil plantation governance in the future. The work in the field would be significant because it directly delivered advantages for our members and the people. Not many organizations did work in the field level. We are very proud of to be one of them,” he said.
He continued it would motivate the organization to always deliver the advantages for the members and the people. “Our main goal is to escalate the smallholders’ welfare by improving palm oil governance and sustainability,” Sabarudin said.
SPKS conducted many trainings to escalate smallholders’ competency. In every year, the organization delivered trainings for about 1.000 to 1.500 smallholders in 22 regencies. The trainings would be about cooperation management, finance, and good governance to support certifications system, such as, ISPO (Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil) and RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil).
“We provided training materials, including hand books that were given to many smallholders out of charge. This would be our ways to escalate their plantation cultivation quality,” he said, as in the official statement to Palmoilmagazine.com recently.
SPKS also focuses on empowering the smallholders’ institutions and legal plantations by mapping and getting their data. This would help the smallholders to get legal certainty on their areas that became the basic to improve the governance. Besides, SPKS was in collaboration with the regional governments to help the independent smallholders to get cultivation documents.
“Many independent smallholders did not have service access to get training because they were not put in data in the regency or province level. We do our best to solve it by focusing on them who are in need,” Sabarudin said.
The organization is committed to support the government’s program to realize ISPO targets. This year, the target would be nine unions with the total about 3.00o smallholders to get into ISPO certification process. The unions would cultivate about 7.000 hectares in many regencies, such as, Kampar, Aceh Utara, and Sanggau.
Besides about certificates, SPKS also actively played its roles in smallholders replanting program (SRP) with the fund helps from Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency. SPKS emphasized the infrastructures would be very significant for the independent smallholders to get fund access and helps to support palm oil production.
SPKS would keep innovating to support sustainable palm oil transformation. Besides focusing on training, legal, and certificates, it also involved to deveop agrochemical products which are environment. The cooperation with many industries and regencies would be about to develop biosilica from palm oil wastes to get additional values and minimize enviornmenta impacts.
With the supports consistently, SPKS would be committed to always develop the independent smallholders in their actions heading to more sustainable and productive agriculture. SPKS hoped this would deliver positive impacts for palm oil industries and smallholders’ welfare significantly. (T2)