Asian Agri will leverage collaborative action in the palm oil industry to play a part in the industry’s push towards better productivity and sustainability. This was shared by Asian Agri’s Managing Director Kelvin Tio at the Indonesia Pavilion at COP21 in Paris today.
Building on the success of its partnered plasma smallholders, the palm oil producer aims to partner more independent smallholders to help them improve productivity and income, while adopting sustainable and best management practices.
The “Independent Smallholder Assistance” Programme was launched in 2012. It started with a total partnered independent plantation area of 2,791ha. Today, the programme involves 5,000 smallholders managing a total plantation area of over 17,000ha.
Partnered independent smallholders will receive training and various forms of technical and non-technical assistance. This will raise standards to those of existing partnered smallholders.