YOGYAKARTA – Indonesia’s palm oil industry has been started since 174 years ago when four seedlings of oil palm trees were planted in the country, 111 years since the development of first industrial scale of palm oil mills to produce crude palm oil (CPO) and 36 years since the robust growth of oil palm smallholding plantations.
“Our oil palm plantations are cultivated by the state-owned plantation firms, private companies and smallholders. But then along with its progress there has been a growing imbalance of development among the three industrial players,” the Indonesian Palm Oil Society (MAKSI) Chairman Darmono Taniwiryono said during a focus group discussion on Indonesian palm oil industry 2022, which was organized by the agricultural engineering faculty of Gajah Mada University (UGM), Palm Oil Agribusiness Strategic Policy Institute (PASPI), the Indonesian Palm Oil Society (MAKSI), and Yogyakarta Institute of Plantations (INSTIPER) in Yogyakarta on Saturday, 14 May 2022.
He said that now the public has to deal with the impact of the imbalance which can be seen in two factors. First, the imbalance in ownerships of plantation areas as state-owned plantations decreased. The state needs to have sufficient area of plantations to enable the government to control the industry.
Second, said Darmono, imbalance of production technology as the technology of CPO production is only owned by big plantation companies and the technology of producing the main downstream products, namely biodiesel and cooking oil, is 100% owned by the private companies.
“The fact is that if we consider the products of CPO, PKO and other derivative products as a birthday cake to celebrate the 174th birthday of Indonesian palm oil industry, then the owners of the cake are 100% the private companies. It is the owners who have the rights to cut and share the cake that has amounted to 50 million tons,” he said.
According to him, it is no wonder that recently an imbalance of power was seen in Indonesia’s palm oil industry. Indonesia which has the largest oil plantation areas and is the largest palm oil producer in the world can be outperformed by Malaysia in maximizing its state role in managing the palm oil industry.
Darmono said that the recent problem of cooking oil supply in Indonesia, which was then followed by the government’s decision to stop exports of CPO, RBD Palm Oil and RBD Palm Olein, was the impact of the imbalance of the oil palm plantation ownership and the technology.
“The smallholders’ palm fresh fruit bunches became wasteful due to the inability of palm oil mills to absorb them. It is the impact of failure to develop the right technology of CPO production for the smallholders whose plantation acreage averages at only 2.0 hectares per farmer since 36 years ago,” he asserted. (*)
Source: InfoSAWIT.com | Featured image via chinadialogue.net
