InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA — The love palm oil campaign and efforts to restore problematic palm oil plantations were the main topics of discussion in the meeting between the Deputy for Strategic Studies of the National Resilience Institute, Prof. Dr. Ir. Reni Mayerni, M.P., and the President Director of PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara (Persero), Agus Sutomo, Monday (19/5) in Jakarta.
During the visit, Prof. Reni handed over her book entitled “Indonesian Palm Oil in the Construction of World Civilization”. She emphasized the importance of building pride in palm oil as Indonesia's leading commodity that dominates the global market.
"We are the world's largest palm oil producer. Why not be proud? The palm oil campaign should be a national movement," said Prof. Reni, as reported by InfoSAWIT from Agrinas, Thursday (22/5/2025).
Prof. Reni also encouraged Indonesian diplomats to be equipped with a comprehensive understanding of palm oil as part of an economic diplomacy strategy. She regretted the rampant negative campaigns among the younger generation, including students, who considered palm oil as the cause of environmental damage.
In fact, according to a study by Lemhanas involving 17 experts, palm oil has high potential in carbon absorption and can be a solution to reducing emissions, if managed properly. However, the results of the study have difficulty penetrating international scientific journals because they are considered to be contrary to the interests of palm oil importing countries.
Not only that, Prof. Reni also proposed that the term "palm oil plantation" be replaced with "palm oil forest" to change public perception. "If rubber can be called people's forest, why not palm oil?" she said.
On the same occasion, he proposed a public campaign entitled “I Love Palm Oil” to increase public awareness of the benefits of palm oil which is present in almost all daily products.
Responding to this, the President Director of PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara (Persero), Agus Sutomo, explained that his company is currently carrying out a major mandate from President Prabowo Subianto to improve problematic palm oil plantations that are currently under the management of Agrinas.
"We received problematic assets. Some have not been maintained for years, the trees are stressed, they become overgrown," said Agus. Of the total 484 thousand hectares of land handed over to Agrinas, only about 289 thousand hectares still have trees, while the rest are empty land or severely damaged areas.
Recovery is not easy. "The roads are damaged, the infrastructure is destroyed. Now we are focusing on normalization. We have budgeted Rp139 billion for repairs so that the damage does not get worse," said Agus.
He also said that around 50 percent of the land is in a state of severe damage, 30 percent is moderately damaged, and the rest is lightly damaged. Even some land is in the legal process, such as the former land owned by Duta Palma which has not been finalized. "What is clear, we immediately manage. We are slowly fixing it," he added.
Prof. Reni appreciates the improvement steps taken by Agus Sutomo. He hopes that Agrinas Palma can be the spearhead of national palm oil renewal. "The initial goal of palm oil is to improve people's welfare. We support concrete steps like this," he said.
Closing the meeting, Agus revealed the big target mandated by the President: to receive and manage one million hectares of oil palm land this year. "This is a long job. But if we are serious, we can revive national pride in oil palm," he said. (T2)
