TIME TO APPLY PRO-FARMER SYSTEM IN PLANTATIONS

by Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Oct 12 (Antara) - The conflict between farmers and an oil palm plantation company in East Kota Waringin District, Central Kalimantan, needs serious government attention and a review of cooperation between farmers and companies.          In East Kota Waringin District, for example, there has been an incident where local residents forced their way onto a plantation area to seize and harvest the company's nucleus palm oil crop.          Allegedly, the locals were angry as the company failed to keep its promise to provide them with palm plantations. Normally, large oil palm plantations are cultivated under a Nucleus Estate (PIR) system, where the company (which owns nucleus plantation) cooperates with the farmers whose plasm land is outside the nucleus area.          In the PIR system, the company owns 80 percent of the nucleus of the plantation, while the plasm farmers own the remaining 20 percent. They cooperate under a mutually beneficial basis.          In the East Kota Waringin District case, the local people had earlier expressed an interest in an offer made by the company to become plasm farmers and, therefore, they had agreed to use their land. But it remained just a dream and they were left disappointed.