A cooperative of 500 oil palm farmers from the Sumatran province of Riau are on track to becoming the first independent farmers certified under the government of Indonesia’s sustainable palm oil standard (ISPO) thanks to a multistakeholder training initiative, which began on Tuesday, March 29th 2016.
The training phase of the pilot project — which is supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in partnership with palm oil company Asian Agri — is expected to take three months to complete and will involve workshops on good agriculture practice and effective plantation management for improving yields. SNV Netherlands Development Organisation will facilitate the training and technical support for the independent farmers.
Once the training is complete, the Amanah cooperative will be independently assessed for its adherence with ISPO’s Principles and Criteria. If the cooperative passes the audit it will receive ISPO certification, becoming the first group of smallholder farmers in the nation to do so.
