PALEMBANG – The South Sumatra chapter of the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI) has set three priority work programs for 2018 including working to prevent ground and forest fires to assure a smooth Asian Games 2018 that will be held in Palembang and in Jakarta.
Harry Hartanto, the chapter chairman, was quoted by a report uploaded on GAPKI’s website on Thursday (4/1/2018), as saying that the two other programs were improving cooperation with and guidance for plasma palm oil farmers and to work to get plantations to be certified under the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) scheme.
“It has become our commitment for us gathered in GAPKI to continue to maintain the land so that no fire breaks out and this has already been expressed to the South Sumatra governor and the other heads of regions, “ Hartanto told Warta Ekonomi on Wednesday (3/1/2018), according to the GAPKI report.
He said that his organization continued to deploy skilled and trained personnel to monitor lands.
“We have already trained 171 persons to become fire fighting instructors, in six waves since 2016-2017,” Hartarto said adding that these personnel were now deployed in all districts of South Sumatra which has palm oil plantations. He added that the personnel also involved the local communities in their efforts.
GAPKI, he said had also set up 135 coordinating post for fire prevention and mitigations, each equipped with equipments up to standards.
“Together with the Regional Police and the Indonesian Armed Forces, we continuously coordinate to build the blocking canals too,” he added.
Regarding the program to improve plasma farmers, there were already 150,000 plasma partnership and these will continue to be worked on.
GAPKI, he said, was also actively encouraging plantation companies to get ISPO certified so that they can increase their competitiveness in the international markets. He said that the government, through the ISPO) certification institutions, was also pushing for the adoption of the certification among the companies as there were so far only about 30 percent of the more than 1,000 palm oil plantation companies which have been certified.
As the world’s top producer of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) with a production of 33.5 million tons in 2016, Indonesia wishes to safeguard the sustainability of the palm oil plantation and industry which it believe will grow rapidly in the future in line with the rising demand for vegetable oils.