InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Institution or association that deals with smallholders is very important namely palm oil plantations develop fast and have something to do with smallholders. They hardly cultivate half of total palm oil plantations in Indonesia. One smallholders’ institution is Persatuan Organisasi Petani Sawit Indonesia (POPSI) which Pahala Sibuea leads.
It is not easy to develop smallholders’ organization(s). Many (independent) smallholders work alone and reluctant to gather and establish association. This happens for the bad experiences in the past in managing cooperation (union).
But the hard things do not block Pahala Sibuea. He did join many organizations and be the pioneer to establish a smallholders’ organization - Sawitku Masadepanku or known as Samade.
In Samade, he developed socialization – from only chit-chat in independent smallholders’ group in social media (facebook) to be eventually the real association.
After quitting from Samade, he is trusted to develop POPSI. As a chairman of the smallholders’ major association, he has many ideas.
He focuses on collecting data and escalating smallholders’ competition. Sibuea said, POPSI was declared in July 2019 in Jakarta.
“As time went by, I was taken by my fellow and advise from the former General Director of Plantation Ministry of Agriculture, Gamal Nasir and Bambang to be the Chairman of POPSI. We faced obstacles when dealing with administration issue. But after that Ministry of Law and Human Rights finally established the regulation (decision) in January 2021,” he recently said to InfoSAWIT. (*)
