Perkumpulan Cahaya Putra Harapan

SUSTAINABILITY JOURNEY STORY

Farmers group determine to retain the RSPO certification that improves livelihoods

The farmer group association named Perkumpulan Cahaya Putra Harapan (PCPH) almost doubled its membership since it was awarded RSPO certification in 2019 because other farmers in the neighborhood have seen the benefit of sustainable practices enjoyed by the Association.

“After we returned from RT-17 in Bangkok in 2019 and after we received the proceed from RSPO credits, more and more farmers came to us to learn more about the best management practices including safety standards that we have been applying in maintain our plantations,” recalled Jamil, group manager of the PCPH farmer association with pride.

The farmer association originally has members in three villages but now has expanded to another village. They were introduced to the best management practices and RSPO certification by Yayasan Setara Jambi that supported by a Dutch non-governmental organization, IDH, local mill Asian Agri and local government in 2016.

“At the beginning, it was very difficult even to gather farmers to attend the training, but thanks to the persistence of the facilitators from Setara Jambi, gradually more farmers come to the meeting and training,” Jamil said and adding that the reluctance to join the training was partly due to their belief that their traditional way of cultivating the oil palm is the right one.

There so many other benefits for farmers by joining the RSPO-certified group, not only financial gains from having better yields and better quality of fruits. “Now farmers realize the importance of documents especially land ownership documents. Before this, most farmers were happy just to have Surat Keterangan Tanah (a letter from the head of a village) and did not know how to improve the legality.” Jamil said.

Moreover, he concluded, through the process of getting RSPO certification, not only did farmers learn, but the local government also learn about their role in assisting farmers to meet all the requirements by RSPO standards. “Before this, the district government did not know why the need to issue SPPL and STDB to farmers. Now they also learn about sustainability standards.” Now the group is in discussion with the local tax office to facilitate almost 500 members to get tax identification numbers online without having to go to the government office to ensure social distancing.

Thanks to the financial gain from the RSPO credit sale, the farmer organization was also able to give back to the community during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. “Because of the proceeds we received; we can provide staple food packages for farmers last year and provides vegetable seed for home gardening. However, we couldn’t do it this year because we are now focusing our resources to build our own office in the piece of land, we purchased last year,” he said adding that the group has been moving office three times now.

The group is scheduled to undergo the second surveillance audit in June 2021. “Hopefully, we can retain the certification so we can continue to sell RSPO credits. We are planning to use the next proceed from the RSPO credit sale to build their own office so farmers have a permanent facility to meet and conduct meetings and training,” Jamil explained.

In the longer term, he continued, the organization plans to recruit more farmers so more farmers can improve their safety while working on the plantation and enjoy the benefit of applying sustainable standards. However, this is quite challenging because the capacity of the Internal Control System still needs to be strengthened and they still need assistance from competent parties to improve their capacity.

Project Impact

Total area covered by the project
432 Ha

Number of smallholders benefitting from this project
406 Smallholders

Number/percentage of women supported by this project
24.63% women in this project

How you can support

The group members are in the third year of being RSPO certified, the ICS still needs assistance to improve their skills and capacity which in turn will ensure they can retain their certification. This effort should be appreciated by the downstream players such as Consumer Good Manufacturers or retailers.

Please give us support in the sustainable supply chain by purchasing the RSPO Smallholders Credits. There will be more attention to get more farmers to join the group to apply oil palm plantations sustainably.