InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Serikat Petani Kelapa Sawit (SPKS) keeps escalating the capacity and skills of counselors for independent smallholders through "Training of Sustainable Trainer". It was for the independent counselors in the Regency of Seruyan and Regency of Kotawaringin Barat. It was on 2 - 6 June 2024 in Pangkalan Bun. SPKS was in cooperation with Akademi Komunitas Perkebunan Yogyakarta (AKPY) as the training facilitator.
Human resource reinforcement by having the training would be one way for SPKS to escalate independent smallholders’ plantation productivity sustainably. Manager and member of SPKS, Muhammad Ridwan said that the training would be about to escalate the quantity and quality of counselors for the independent smallholders. “Independent counselors would be the spear to deliver trainings for independent smallholders that reached more than 2,5 million men,” Ridwan said, as in the official statement to InfoSAWIT, Thursday (11/7/2024).
He also mentioned, there were 47.606 counselors in national scale while in the villages, the agricultural products could be reaching 75 thousand. "The gap showed the lack of counselors that the government had. The numbers could be less if seen from the counselors that mastered sustainable palm oil cultivation,” he said.
That is why, the gap should be added by independent counselors so that the smallholders would not be left behind and palm oil production would be escalating.
Chairman of Facilitator Team of AKPY, Juremi said that the training should get expansion and more intensive. He also hoped from the training, palm oil plantation productivity of the independent smallholders would be the same as the companies’ one that reached 30 tons per hectare per year.
In the same chance, Head of Pantation, Agriculture and Plantation Agency Regency of Kotawaringin Barat said that the independent counselors would be the power to help the government to support independent smallholders to get palm oil fund access and Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil certificate. “The collaboration between the government and other stakeholders should get escalated to escalate the class of our smallholders,” he said.
The participants in the training would be part of counseling team of independent smallholders in SPKS to deliver training and development for the independent smallholders about good agricultural practices, sustainable certificates, and fund access from the government or Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency. This would be the support to national scale – policy to escalate palm oil human resources sustainably. (T2)
