Antara 4 Jun 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government will not allow development of oil palm plantations on peat land in an effort to increase palm oil production, Agriculture Minister Suswono said here on Friday.
He said the government would focus on increasing the productivity of current plantations rather than conducting expansions.
The agriculture minister said the government had so far produced licenses for the development of 9.8 million hectares of oil palm plantations in the country but so far only 7.9 million hectares had been realized and so 1.9 million hectares more still have yet to be developed.
"No further development of oil palm plantations however will be allowed on peat land or primary forests," he said.
In view of that, he said the planned moratorium of oil palm plantation development in 2011-2013 would not disrupt national crude palm oil production.
The minister said the ban on oil palm plantation development on peat land was effective only for new license holders while those that have held the license before the issuance of the ban could still implement development but must follow the regulation on peat land oil palm plantation development.
Based on the regulation oil palm plantation development could only be carried on less than three meter thick peat lands.
The minister said the productivity of oil palm plantations right now is only 2.5 tons per hectare which is still below that of Malaysia which reaches 4 tons per hectare.
He said if productivity could be increased to equal that of Malaysia national crude palm oil production could increase twice higher than now.
With total oil palm plantations now recorded at 7.3 million hectares Indonesia could produce 21.5 million tons of palm oil. In 2020 the country expects to increase production to 40 million tons.
The minister said the most important thing to do now is finding new markets so that Indonesia would not depend too much on Europe.
He said he planned to go to Helsinki on June 14-15 to conduct positive campaign on palm oil industry in the country.
On June 11-13 he would meanwhile visit Saudi Arabia to among others witness the signing of a cooperation agreement between Savola Group of Saudi and PT Smart of Indonesia.
"Savola plans to import 600,000 tons of palm oil a year from PT Smart," he said.
(H-YH/HAJM/S012/P003)
Indonesia to apply sustainable CPO standards
Antara 5 Jun 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The government will soon apply Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) standards nationwide to sharpen the competitive edge of the commodity in the international market, an official said.
"I have heard ISPO will be made mandatory. So far, RSPO (Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil) has been applied voluntarily," Deputy Trade Minister Mahendra Siregar said here on Friday.
He said the agriculture minister had completed the initial draft of ISPO. The draft had been distributed among various parties for inputs.
"I hope the process will go on so that the ISPO can be issued in the not too distant future," he said.
For the time being, the government would only encourage palm oil producers to abide by the RSPO, he said.
He said the government and domestic palm oil producers had agreed that the issue of environment and good agricultural practices were something unbargainable.
"We have all agreed on the matter. I am optimistic we can continue to develop palm oil for exports in view of its great production potentials," he said.
The issue of sustainable CPO has turned into controversy since the European Union planned to introduce renewable energy directives.
The EU policy gives preference to imported goods produced by means of environmentally-friendly processes and penalties on those produced by polluting the environment.(*)
