InfoSAWIT, BENGKULU – Fresh fruit bunch (FFB) stealing does not only happen in big palm oil plantation companies but also in people’s plantations in Regency of Seluma.

It happened in Village of Tanjung Seluai, District of Seluma Selatan, and Village of Talang Prapat, District of Seluma Barat, and some others. A smallholder, Wito (58) from Village of Tanjung Seluai said, one factor that escalates FFB stealing is FFB price itself. It is now about Rp 2.000/kg in smallholders’ level, this encouraged the actors to get instant profits by harvesting others’ plantations.

Because of the stealing, the local smallholders should harvest earlier from the schedule by hoping to minimize the losses but only harvested the mature one..

"We do concern about our FFB stealing and to anticipate it we have to harvest earlier and regularly do monitoring,” Wito said, as InfoSAWIT quoted from Radar Bengkulu.

Some of them also marked their FFB with paint so when it would be sold to traders, the stealer would be identified.

The dilemma is that every perpetuator caught was not firmly punished because the losses of FFB stealing did not fit to legal limits, which is less than Rp 1 million though the stealing delivered losses for smallholders significantly and it was repeated. (T2)