“Many farmers are so depressed that they have started chopping down their oil palm trees with machetes. This is a worrying sign of stress”says the chairman of the Indonesian Association of Palm Oil Producers (Apkasindo), Manurung Gulat.
He learned of these acts of desperation during a national meeting of Apkasindo members on June 22. Acehnese farmers [une province du nord de Sumatra] said they had started cutting down their own palm trees, as in the Subulussalam region, where 3 hectares of plantations had thus given way to other crops.
And the phenomenon is spreading. The reason ? Small-scale independent growers’ frustration over fruit price, which has fallen to Rs 1,300 [0,08 euro] the kilo. Those associated with palm oil mills manage to get at best 2,000 rupees [0,12 euro] the kilo. Before the ban on exporting this product, the tariff was over 3,000 rupees [0,20 euro]. [Le 28 avril, le gouvernement indonésien a suspendu pendant près d’un mois les exportations, afin de faire baisser le prix de l’huile de cuisson, en forte hausse sur le marché intérieur. Cela a pénalisé les petits planteurs et gonflé les stocks.]
This situation also affects education: children who have had to stop their studies because their parents can no longer pay school fees. According to Manurung Gulat, all of this is just a tiny part of the multiplier effect of the drupe price drop. He estimates the number of producers and workers at 17 million [en Indonésie] who depend on oil palm for their livelihood.
Faced with this stress, the members of Apaksindo have opened an advisory office to support growers and respond to their pleas.
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Source of the article
Tempo Newspaper is the daily newspaper published by the group Tempo whose flagship publication is the eponymous weekly.
Tempo was first published in April 1971 by P.T. Grafitti Pers, with the intention of offering the Indonesian public new ways of getting information, freedom of analysis and respect for differences of opinion.
Step by step, Tempo publishes increasingly detailed investigations, questioning certain aspects of General Suharto’s policy. In 1994, the weekly was banned by the censors and closed. In October 1998, four months after Suharto’s resignation, Tempo reappears, published this time by PT Tempo Inti Media Tbk. There is now an English edition on the Internet.
The site offers a daily update of the main information of the paper edition, available in three languages: Indonesian, English and Japanese. Each week, the site also offers an opinion poll on a topical issue to which all Internet users are invited to respond. It favors political and economic news as well as certain major reporting files. Back issues of the magazine up to 1998 can be consulted. Access to the site as well as consultation of a short summary of the articles are free, but you have to pay to have access to the complete articles.
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