InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – In the smallholders’ gathering event in Jakarta, Coordinator Minister in Economy, Airlangga Hartarto mentioned some challenges that palm oil industries would face. One of them is about European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).
He identified three basic challenges (impacts) that these industries would face in the future. The first, EUDR potentially puts smallholders away from palm oil supply chain in the globe. This would significantly deliver impacts to the economy nationally.
The second, general data protection regulation (GDPR) regulates that every smallholder should publish geolocation data of their plantations without having legal guaranty that their data would be protected or confidential by writing their products as regulated in EUDR. The third, EUDR would group the countries in three categories, they are, low risk, medium risk, and high risk.
“Of course, we want that Indonesia would be in low risk (category). That is why, the issues about ‘too late’ would be the government’s main priority,” he said in Jakarta.
That is why the government has been doing diplomatic efforts, such as, joint mission between Indonesia and Malaysia in May 2023 that stated objection to EUDR. As the follow up, joint task force between Indonesia, Malaysia and European Union was established so that EUDR would not be (a) losses for producer countries.
Prior, to face the challenges, according to what InfoSAWIT got, the Government of Indonesia did some strategic ways such as, the first, did same mission between Malaysia and Indonesia to Brussel.
The second, Indonesia establish joint task force in the first meeting and got workprint, for instance, the smallholders should be put in palm oil supply chain, confirming that Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) would be accepted in European Union.
It needs to conduct discussion to deliver market guarantee that sustainable scheme in Indonesia would be accepted in the continent.
The third, traceability implementation is a must because 40% of palm oil plantations in Indonesia belongs to smallholders, and the fourth about environmental natural resource advantages. (T2)
