Oil palm productivity in Riau is still low

"Low productivity on such plantation businesses characterized by fresh fruit bunch/ffb CPO of 4–6 tons/ha/year, fresh fruit bunch/ffb CPO of 20–30 tons/ha/year, CPO 3–5 tons/ha/year and CPO production of 10–15 tons/ha/year," said the Head of Riau Plantation Office Muhibul Basar in Pekanbaru on Tuesday.

According to him, low productivity is also caused by non-superior seeds or non-certified seeds, poor plantation maintenance, and limited facilities and infrastructure.

He said that such condition makes farmers income low, besides still facing internal constraints such as limited access for farmers to sell CPO ffb to the factory, so that they have to sell to middlemen.

“Other constraints that contributed to Riau palm oil low productivity are farmers’ limited capability to obtain superior and certified seeds, as well as fertilizers and pesticides,” he said.

Moreover, he added that still low human resources of the farmers affect their capability to adopt plantation technology, weak institution, yet unmapped distribution of farmers’ plantation, age group of farmers’ plantation is difficult to know, and there are still many Riau farmers that do not have business permit in accordance with the laws and regulations.

Palm oil farmers’ livelihood is even more miserable, due to increment of destructed plantation land area, increment of critical plantation land, sea water intrusion, dry and prone to fire condition of the plantation land due to farmers’ canals that are not partitioned (water flows to the sea freely).

“Farmers’ plantation land is increasingly prone to fire due to non-implementation of peat water management, besides the land resources that are limited and prone to conflicts, overlapping plantation permits. While the farmers’ plantation land is located within the forest area,” he said.

Therefore, he added, Disbun Riau now intensifies the coaching, provides production means assistance, education and training as well as technical guidance through activity programs funded by the State Budget and Regional Budget.