InfoSAWIT, PEKANBARU – On Monday, 18 September 2023, General Director of Plantation Ministry of Agriculture, Andi Nur Alam Syah did visit to the office of Riau Governor. It was about to discuss smallholders replanting program (SRP) in the province called "Bumi Lancang Kuning".

Andi said that the main goal of the meeting was about to discuss SRP realization through partnership to maintain palm oil plantations and escalate their production in the province. He also mentioned that the collaboration would be incredible thing to support palm oil sectors in Riau.

According to Central Bureau of Statistics, palm oil plantations in Indonesia laid about 14,99 million hectaers in 2022 and 19 percent of the numbers developed in Riau. Though the province is the biggest palm oil producer in Indonesia, many plantations are now old for being more than 20 - 25 years old. “It is time to get SRP,” Andi Nur Alam Syah said, as InfoSAWIT quoted from the official page of Riau Province, Tuesday (19/8/2023).

He continued, his part decided 2023 SRP targets that should lay about 20 thuosand hectares in many ways, including having partnership with companies, the government, and private. In Riau, the target would lay 10 thousand hectares. The program would run by having cooperation with agency besides partnership.

He also emphasized that policy regulates that smallholders and plantations should immediately propose to get SRP but some issues still raise such as, the plantations are in forest regions that postpone to get SRP.

That is why he said that it is significant to get solution on the issues and hoped that Ministry of Environment and Forestry could deal, check, confirm that smallholders’ plantations in forest regions could get SRP.

If the plantations in forest regions and not qualifying the terms and conditions, his part would not distribute fund. That is why coordination among Plantation Agency Riau Province, Ministry of Environment and Forestry, and central government would be the key to solve the issues.

Governor of Riau, Syamsuar supported to take for advantage the potential in the province. He hoped the plantations taken as smallholders’ ownership in forest regions would be not categorized as forest regions or needed to change the status. (T2)