JAKARTA – Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo encourages the big palm oil companies to integrate their oil palm plantations with cattle husbandry directly in their own plantations or indirectly through partnerships with other cattle farmers operating around their plantations.
The partnerships under the nucleus-plasma plantation scheme in integrating the oil palm plantations with cattle farming will support the efforts of increasing livestock population and beef cattle production in Indonesia, while implementing sustainability principles in Indonesian agriculture.
“I encourage all other owners of oil palm plantations to integrate their plantations with cattle farming. It can be implemented in your own plantations or through partnerships with cattle farmers,” Minister Syahrul said on Saturday, 18 March 2023, during a ceremony to kick off an integrated system of cattle husbandry and oil palm plantations, which is named “SISKA KU INTIP” in SISKA Ranch owned by PT. Buana Karya Bhakti, in Tanah Bumbu, South Kalimantan.
The cattle-oil palm farming integrated system will significantly contribute to the increase of livestock population and beef cattle production, while strengthening the implementation of sustainable agriculture in Indonesia.
“Such integrated system under the partnership scheme in South Kalimantan is a good example of mutually beneficial cooperation between palm oil companies and cattle farmers that can be implemented in other provinces across the country,” the minister said.
He pointed out that Indonesia has a total 16.38 million hectares of oil palm plantations. If only 20% of the plantations are used for cattle farming, then they can produce around 1.6 million cows per year.
He expressed his appreciation to South Kalimantan Governor who obliges the oil plantation owners to integrate their plantations with cattle farming or set up partnerships with other cattle farmers around their plantations.
“We see that the development of the cattle-oil palm integrated system has been very successful. It has produced quality cows and the oil plantations can grow well as expected,” he said.
South Kalimantan Governor Sahbirin Noor said the SISKA KU INTIP is a flagship program aimed to develop an agribusiness system which is highly competitive, people-oriented, sustainable and integrated to accelerate the realization of self-sufficiency of beef cattle in South Kalimantan.
South Kalimantan governor has also issued governor regulation (Pergub) no.053/2021 on acceleration of beef cattle self-sufficiency through the integration system of cattle-oil palm plantation. The Pergub rules that by the year 2024 the palm oil companies in the province are obliged to implement the program of SISKA KU INTIP.
Governor Sahbirin said that as of March 2023 there have been 18 clusters of SISKA KU INTIP under 12 groups of big private oil palm companies and 1 cooperatives with 279 cattle-oil palm farmers and 2,394 cows in plasma plantations of 21,331 hectares.
“South Kalimantan has a total plantation acreage of 250,000 Ha which can accommodate a total of 125,000 cows under the development of the SISKA KU INTIP program,” said the governor. (*)
Source: Jurnas.com
