InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Chairman of Supervisory Board of Asosiasi Petani Kelapa Sawit Indonesia (Apkasindo), General of Army (Ret.) Dr. Moeldoko officially inaugurated the coordinators of Apkasindo in 2024 - 2029 in the auditorium of Ministry of Agriculture. In his speech, he emphasized it would be significant for Apkasindo as the bridge between the smallholders and the government, for the people’s interests, universities, research, and technology development in palm oil sectors.
"Apkasindo should play its roles as the bridging institution, maintain the technology development so that the smallholders would apply,” Moeldoko said, as InfoSAWIT, quoted, Wednesday (9/10/2024). He also emphasized that it would be significant to be a critical institution as the partner of the government. “If any policy does not take partisanship for the smallholders, Apkasindo should struggle for it,” he said.
Moeldoko also said some strategic issues that Apkasindo should focus on, such as, the low numbers of palm oil plantation productivity in the smallholders’ levels than those in Malaysia that reached 19 tons per hectares while in Indonesia it still reached 12 tons per hectares. "Apkasindo has to get solution to increase it,” he said.
Moeldoko emphasized it would be significant to get collaboration among Apkasindo, Ministry of Agriculture, and Commission IV Indonesian Legislators to accomplish palm oil downstream issue. “We have to get solution for the bottleneck that blocks downstream sectors,” he said while saying about the plantation issues in forest region. He hoped Apkasindo would cooperate with the government to get legal for the smallholders where they cultivated in the areas.
FFB Price: Would be the Focus for the New Chairman of Apkasindo
After the inauguration, the new Chairman of Apkasindo, Dr. Gulat Manurung would be committed to struggle for the same fresh fruit bunch (FFB) price between the independent and plasma smallholders. He said that in the past five years, his leadership delivered advantages for the smallholders but there would be many to go.
One main issue he discussed was the regulation that did not protect the independent smallholders. “There is no single word that mentioned independent smallholders in nowadays regulations. In fact, they cultivated million hectares of palm oil plantations,” he said by hoping that the new government would revise the Regulation of Minister of Agriculture Number 1/ 2018 so the independent smallholders would be acknowledged and get justice.
He told the different FFB price delivered losses for the independent ones significantly. “In the late week, the independent smallholders got loss up to trillion rupiah for the different price,” he said and with his new spirit, Manurung targeted to struggle for the independent smallholders’ rights in Indonesia. (T2)
