Palm Oil’s high productivity and efficiency as a crop are what is making it the continuous targets of hostilities from outside of the industry and the country, an executive of the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (GAPKI) is saying.
“Can you imagine palm oil becoming Indonesia’s power? Indonesia can become a superpower because it has a source of renewable energy from palm oil, that is why palm oil will always be seen as an enemy,” GAPKI Deputy Chairman Togar Sitanggang was quoted as saying in the organization’s official website.
Speaking in Belitung, while addressing a course on palm oil for journalists, Sitanggang said on Monday (27/8) that it was this huge potential that palm oil possessed as a source of energy that made it a target of animosity from elsewhere.
He said that although Indonesian now only produced 40 million tons per year, it could in the future double the figure,
“Can you imagine, palm oil becoming the source of renewable energy in the future? We would no longer need to import crude oil. Pertamina can export a blend of diesel oil and biodiesel of 60-70 percent,” he said, referring to the state oil and gas company Pertamina.
Palm oil, he added, will play a really big role in energy in the future because fossil oils was limited while oil palm could remain productive for 25-30 years and is easily replanted, The long productivity cycle made it much more efficient than other oil-yielding commodities such as soybeans which only produce for three months in a year.
“That means palm oil’s competitiveness is much higher. Even more so if productivity which currently stands at around four tons per hectares can be raised, That is why Palm oil is being seen as an enemy,” Sitanggang said,
Indonesia is currently the world’s largest palm oil producer and together with second largest producer Malaysia, account for about 85 percent of the world supply.