One of the large private oil palm plantation corporations in Indonesia, Asian Agri, is targeting an increase in the productivity of plasma’s oil palm plantations from 15 tons of FFBs per ha to 25 tons per ha.
This target comes along with the use of Topaz oil palm seeds that have been developed by the Asian Agri R&D Team. Asian Agri has partnered with 30,000 plasma smallholders who own 60,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in Riau, North Sumatra and Jambi.
Head of Partnership Asian Agri, Rudy Rismanto, said that regarding the improvement of the welfare of partner smallholders, Asian Agri gradually continues to encourage the replanting. We have been fostering them since 30 years ago. Smallholders are also encouraged to develop sustainable plantation with the palm oil quality that is acceptable to the national and international markets. Now, there are two smallholder cooperatives with thousands of members who have replanted and have started to harvest.
Furthermore, Rudy explained, two cooperatives assisted by Asian Agri have shown good results. One is Mulus Rahayu Cooperative that replanted in 2016, has been targeted to increase its productivity to reach 25 tons per ha, while Bina Usaha Baru Cooperative that replanted in 2017, has targeted to reach 21 tons per ha for its first harvest year in 2020.
Not only that, Asian Agri’s partner smallholders are also trained to develop side businesses in order to get alternative incomes by optimizing their oil palm plantations for cattle, goat, catfish and bee honey cultivation.
Read the complete news in Warta Ekonomi.
