InfoSAWIT, JAMBI – Until now palm oil plantations based on the last map in Jambi Province by Ministry of Agriculture of Indonesia in 2019 laid about 1,1 million hectare (ha). Of the total plantations, 150.000 hectares belonged to plasma smallholders, 400.000 hectares belonged independent smallholders or people, and the rests, about 500.000 hectares belonged to many companies.

Head of Plantation Agency, Jambi Province, Agus Rizal said, plasma plantations belong to the people that the companies handed over. Besides developing the main plantations, the companies have obligation to develop the people’s plantations. But in its cultivation, the people should cooperate with the companies. Independent smallholders independently cultivate theirs.

After giving area certificates, the company could cultivate the plantations in a whole which means, palm oil plantation owners just only wait for the production selling. “The smallholders do nothing. Everything is done by the companies, both in seeds, fertilizers, and others. The production - 70 percent for the companies, and 30 percent for plantation owners," he said, as InfoSAWIT quoted from Jamberita.

Meanwhile independent smallholders mostly sold their plantation production to middlemen. The impact from independent cultivation, Agus continued, is unstable price and it does not refer to fresh fruit bunch (FFB) price that Plantation Agency decided in every week. Meanwhile, many companies just bought the plantation production from plasma smallholders.

“It hit the most when some time ago, export activity was banned. No company bought plasma’s production. The companies did not buy smallholders’ production. If few companies bought, it was much cheaper from FFB price decision,” he said. (T2)