Indonesia aims to replant 540,000ha of smallholder palm plantation by 2024

Indonesia aims to accelerate its palm oil replanting programme to double the area it covered between 2017 and 2022 in an effort to maintain production, a government official said on Tuesday (May 30).

The world’s biggest palm oil producer launched a subsidised palm oil replanting programme for smallholders in 2017 to boost output without clearing more forested land and to help fend off attacks on the sustainability of the crop.

Now it wants to replant 540,000 hectares (1.3 million acres) of smallholder palm plantation by 2024.

“In less than two years, we have to work hard to achieve the smallholder replanting target to rejuvenate Indonesia’s palm plantation and maintain production,” Rizal Affandi Lukman, an official at the Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs told an industry seminar.

At the programme’s launch in late 2017, Indonesia had initially aimed to replant 2.4 million hectares by 2025. However, as of February 2023 only around 278,000 hectares of the land had been replanted.

This year, the government has set a target to replant 180,000 hectares.

The programme needs financial support from banks, Rizal said as the government has only allocated 30 million rupiah (RM9,225) subsidy per hectare.

A smallholders association APKASINDO estimates replanting would cost around 70 million rupiah per hectare.