JAKARTA – The Vice Chairman of The House of Regional Representatives of Republic of Indonesia (DPD RI) Sultan B Najamudin asked the government through the Oil Palm Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS) to allocate a special budget for fertilizer subsidies for independent oil palm smallholders in the regions.
This was conveyed by Sultan after he received a report that oil palm farmers in Bengkulu Province were still having difficulty buying chemical fertilizers because of the price, which currently has hit more than IDR1 million per sack.
This condition also causes the productivity of palm oil to decrease by up to 50 percent.
“Firstly, we certainly deeply regret the government’s policy of putting palm oil in the list of plantation commodities that no longer receive subsidized fertilizer. As a result, small palm oil farmers are forced to compete with corporations that control production resources,” said the former Deputy Governor of Bengkulu through his official statement on Friday (24/2).
According to him, the high price of non-subsidized fertilizers is very burdensome for oil palm farmers in meeting the demand for fertilizer inputs for their plants.
Therefore, the government needs to find substitute sources of fertilizer subsidies for small oil palm farmers.
“Until now we only know that hundreds of trillions of palm oil funds have been collected, but the portion of farmers is only channeled through replanting funds, only around IDR702 billion until 2018 or around 1.6 percent,” explained Sultan.
“Almost all of these funds are allocated to corporations and mandatory biodiesel policies,” he added.
We are not saying that this is misguided, he continued, but ideally the budget for the palm oil export levies should be allocated according to the needs of the production facilities of oil palm smallholders.
In addition to the need for seeds for rejuvenation, farmers also need fertilizer which has a high portion of production costs each season.
“Inequality in the use of BPDPKS funds needs to be addressed by the government. If the productivity of independent smallholders continues to be low, in the long run it will become a ticking time bomb that will make it difficult for productivity and meeting national palm oil needs,” he concluded.
