JAKARTA – The Oil Palm Plantation Fund Management Board (BPDPKS) reported that it has disbursed a total fund of Rp389.3 billion to finance the activities of palm oil researches and innovations during the period of 2015 – 2021.
BPDPKS Service Division Head Arfie Thahar said that the fund disbursement is part of BPDPKS’ commitment to support the palm oil researches and innovations as stipulated in the presidential regulation Perpres No.66/2018 on collection and use of the oil palm plantation fund.
“The activities of research and development is aimed to increase production, sustainability, product creation and innovation, new markets, and improvement of oil palm farmers’ welfare,” he said in Jakarta on Friday, 27 May 2022.
The Rp389.3 billion fund was used to finance 235 activities of research, consisting of 48 researches on bioenergy, 9 researches on post-harvest, 26 on oil palm cultivations, 17 on foods and health, 37 on oleochemical and biomaterial, 61 on social economy, and 37 on environment.
In implementing the research programs, BPDPKS has partnered with 70 research and development institutions, which include universities and the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN). It also involved a total of 840 researchers, 346 students, and 201 publications.
“The series of researches have resulted in 42 patents and 6 books,” Arfie said during a Webinar on “Palm Oil Innovations in Food Industries”, which was organized by BPDPKS.
At the same occasion, Moch. Edy Yusuf, assistant deputy in charge of plantation and agribusiness development at the economic coordinating ministry, said that palm oil research and innovation is a must for the palm oil industries to enable them to properly meet the growing need of people.
“The palm oil has become an important commodity for the global society as it functions as raw material to feed various kinds of industries, such as foods, cosmetics, soaps, hand sanitizer, other personal care products, and renewable energy. In every 24 hours of our life we consume or use products that contain palm oil,” he said.
Edy underlined the importance of joint actions among all of the palm oil stakeholders to keep sustainability from the upstream to downstream sectors by continually maintaining a harmony of people, planet and profit.
Meanwhile, APICAL Indonesia Senior Manager for Commercial Biofuel, Jummy Bismar Sinaga said that they have been continually conducting researches and innovations to produce downstream palm oil products.
From upstream sector, the company gets support from Asian Agri which has 100,000 ha as oil palm nucleus plantations and 60,000 ha as plasma plantations, and 41,000 self-sufficient plantations, with 22 palm oil mills and 10 units of kernel crushing plants.
Regarding negative campaigns against Indonesian palm oil, Sahat Sinaga, acting chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Council (DMSI) said that such campaigns have been launched since 1980s. “Other producing countries of vegetable oils have been vilifying the palm oil as having low quality as other vegetable oils’ prices are averagely US$200 higher than that of the palm oil,” he said.
“Their claim that the palm oil is cheap because it has low quality is not true at all,” he asserted.
Source: antaranews.com
