Jakarta – The palm oil industry has become an important economic sector and the most resilient one in Indonesia. It was proven during the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic when other industries dropped but the palm oil industry remained intact in a steady growth and keep the Indonesian economy strong.
The Indonesia’s palm oil industry also employs at least 16 million workers. Every year, the palm oil industry contributes around 13.5 percent to Indonesia’s non-oil-gas exports and 3.5 percent to Indonesia’s gross domestic product (GDP). “It has been also expanding into downstream industries with more than 146 kinds of downstream products and derivatives,” the house of representatives’ (DPR) Commission IV Member Ravindra Airlangga said during the Indonesian Good Palm Oil Socialization and Expo 2022 in Puncak, Bogor, West Java on Thursday, 06 October 2022.
The event with the theme of down-streaming palm oil towards reaching the national economic resilience was organized by the Indonesian Youth Network or Jaringan Indonesia Muda (JIM) under a collaboration with the DPR Commission IV and the oil palm plantation fund management board (BPDPKS).
Ravindra said that based on data from the agriculture ministry in 2021 Indonesia has a total acreage of oil palm plantations at 15.98 million hectares, spreading over Sumatera, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua.
The Association of Oil Palm Smallholders and Nucleus Estates (Aspekpir) Deputy Chairman Agus Sutarman said that initially the oil palm plantations were only developed by the companies. But in 1979 the oil palm smallholders managed to own around 3,125 hectares of plantations, while the big companies at 257,939 hectares.
Since then the smallholders have been continually increasing their plantations. In 1980, the government launched the program called PIR/NES (nucleus estates and smallholders), which was funded by the World Bank, and appointed the state-owned plantation company (BUMN) PT Perkebunan Nusantara (PTPN) to function as the nucleus estate and the smallholders as the plasmas. (*)
Source: Warta Ekonomi
