Gaining certification changes everything

At the RSPO, we help to improve smallholder livelihoods by building the capacity of sustainable agriculture practices on your farms.

Today, more than seven (7) million smallholders around the world make a living from oil palm. In Malaysia and Indonesia alone, smallholdings represent approximately 40% of the total area for oil palm production.

Independent Smallholder

• You are NOT a scheme smallholder (see definition below)
• The total size of your oil palm production area is:
  • smaller than or equal to 50 hectares(ha) if no threshold is defined in a National Interpretation; OR
  • smaller than or equal to the maximum size defined in a National Interpretation (e.g., for Indonesia this implies threshold size is 20 ha or below and for Ecuador 75 ha or below).
• You have the enforceable decision-making power on the operation of the land and production practices.
• You have the freedom to choose how you utilise the land, type of crops to plant, and how to manage them (how yoy organise, manage and finance the land).
• You meet any further criteria relative to the applicability of this standard as provided in the National Interpretation of their country.

Scheme Smallholder

• The enforceable decision-making power on the operation of the land and production practices; and/or
• The freedom to choose how they utilise their land, types of crops to plant, and how they manage them (how they organise, manage and finance the land) (source : RSPO P&C 2018);
• Smallholders that may be structurally bound by contract, credit agreement or by planning to a particular mill, but the association is not necessarily limited to such linkages. Other terms commonly used for schema smallholders include associated and/or plasma smallholders (source : RSPO Certification System for P&C 2017).