InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA - The villagers who live within limited facilities now drastically change because they get better economy from FFB trade. The escalating life standard made them change in life style and tend to be more consumptive and could be out of control.
Much money also encouraged some individuals decided to loan money from financial institutions, such as, banks or online loans. The trust that palm oil harvest would be used to pay credit or loans they got. Unfortunately, it is upside down, mis the target.
Their inability to pay their debts, loans or credit raised worries for debt collectors. To solve the situation and condition, some individuals should decide illegal thing by stealing FFB from the plantations which are not theirs. The target is the company(ies’) plantations for delivering much better harvest and standard nursery.
To prevent FFB stealing, the villagers (people) should wisely manage their finance. The smallholders should avoid to get unnecessary life needs. Just prioritize daily needs and do harmony with financial ability. The smart smallholders would be able to allocate some of FFB trade to be saved and some for investment, for example, buying new areas to develop palm oil or purchasing many kinds of fertilizers. By having and implementing the strategies, it is hoped the villagers would be able to face financial issue wisely, encouraging economic sustainability in the region(s).
Transmigration program as the way of the government to equalize economy and prosperity would positively deliver impacts in transmigration locations. The people that joined the program would get housing and plantation facilities but the location would be far from sub district or capital of a regency. The transmigrators as new comers would try their best to change their economy by farming, including planting palm oil plantations.
Planting palm oil plantations successfully deliver the positive namely because of the new investors invested in the region, establishing mill. These also change the transmigrators’ lives drastically. But the era changes – from Orde Baru to Reformasi. Every era has the new issues, such as, primordial and regional autonomy. Such issues made the local youth the prior to develop the region. The transmigrators that got better from transmigration program would be the target of jealousy because the local does not get better as same as them. The jealousy could disturb the social balance in the region.
That is why it needs understanding and dialogue between transmigrators and local people to develop harmonious relationship and cooperation to face social and economic changes. The government and related parties should implement fair policy(ies) to prevent social jealousy that would end by FFB stealing and other security issues.
The jealousy could also raise from the successful transmigrators that have been in partnership that is managed by plasma cooperation with plantation companies. The plasma partnership is successfully established and productive. Some issues were blown up to bother plantation company operational. The issues could be indigenous land, inheritaged land by the elders, not hiring the local, broken ways, and no corporate social program to environment. Such issues were the tools to press the company to fulfill what the villagers demanded.
To face the claims many local villagers did action to master the plantations of the company. If their claims were not fulfilled, the action could be FFB stealing and pillage that obviously be done by the local. The irony is that the action was controlled by intellectual from the local who is clever and might have his own interests.
FFB pillage and stealing are always led to peron. After FFB was collected, they would take it by vehicles and re-sell to the mill that plantation company has.
By: Edwin Leonardo Armay/Palm oil plantation practitioner
