InfoSAWIT, BENGKULU UTARA – Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (PFMA) conducted Palm Oil Cultivation Technic and Post-Harvest Training in Bengkulu. It was part of palm oil plantation human resource development in 2024 and was joined by 88 smallholders from Regency of Bengkulu Utara. The training would last for five days - from 15 to 19 July 2024 at Hotel Mercure Bengkulu. It was in cooperation with General Directorate of Plantation Ministry of Agriculture and PT Citra Widya Education (PT CWE).
PFMA and General Directorate of Plantation have other 14 training institutional partners. The total particiapants in the training would cover 6.437 men from many regios in Indonesia. The participants were from many villages and sub districts in the Regency of Bengkulu Utara, such as, Sub district of Ulok Kupai, Batik Nau, Putri Hijau, Keyear old FFB is, Pinang Raya, Padang Jaya, Selebar, Giri Mulya, Argamakmur, Sukun, Air Padang, Napal Putih, Gading, and Kampung Melayu.
Deputy Director of PT Citra Widya Education, Ahmad Mahfud in his speech emphasized palm oil industries would be very important for Indonesia. "Palm oil supports the man’s needs in food, health, and alternative source of energy. That is why the industries need the supports to develop and escalate the production, and sustainable condition,” he said, as in the official statement InfoSAWIT, Tuesday (16/7/2024).
Mahfud also explained that the training would be about to escalate the smallholders’ capacity in palm oil cultivation and harvest. “The program would cover two kinds of training, such as, the training for planters and scholarship for young generations. The cultivation training would cover seed preparation, planting, nursery, pest and disease contro,, and post – harvest transportation,” he said.
He hoped that the training would help every smallholder to escalate crude palm oil (CPO) quality and quantity. “Hopefully, the training would deliver blessing, easiness, and success. We do hope, the smallholders would escalate their welfare, plantation productivity, and other goodness,” Mahfud said.
Head of Plantation Agency, Regency of Bengkulu Utara represented by the Secretary of the agency, Hardiantoni said that the training would be significant to escalate the smallholders’ welfare. “Dear sirs, you should focus on the training to get insight and could be practiced in your own plantations and should be shared to others that did not join the training,” he said.
Hardiantoni acknowledged many smallholders implemented cultivation technic in bad ways. “I do hope you would get insight from every competent instructor and be active during the training. Ask if you do not know to deliver the advantages for others,” he said.
The training was officially inaugurated by Head of Food Plant, Horticulrue, and Plantation Agency, Bengkulu Province, M. Rizon. In his speech, he said that palm oil plantations in Bengkulu Province laid on about 413.950 hectares. 77% or about 319.000 hectares were the smallholders’ ones. “But many smallholders did not know how to conduct the harvest and cultivation technic well. The training would be very important for them,” he said.
M. Rizon continued, the smallholders faced many challenges in the plantation cultivation, such as, the new planting, planting trees in distance, the nursery. “From the field facts and condition, some smallholders planted palm oil together with other plants. In fact, palm oil is monoculture. This has something to do with CPO production,” he said.
He hoped, the training would escalate their insight and plantation production, and also their welfare. “The participants are the selected ones and would be the successor for other smallholders to implement the right cultivation and harvest technic,” he said. (T2)
