Sustainability certificate: Sunarno (center), the leader of the Amanah Oil Palm Independent Smallholders
Association, symbolically receives the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certificate from Vice
Minister of Trade Bayu Krishnamurti (left) at the opening of the RSPO 11th annual conference in Medan,
North Sumatra, on Tuesday. The association grouping 350 farmers with about 765 hectares of plantations
at Pelalawan, Riau province, has just proven that it is not impossible to get sustainability certificates as
long as farmers are highly disciplined in implementing best farming practices. (JP/Apriadi Gunawan)

14/11/2013 (Jakarta Post) - The Amanah Oil Palm Independent Smallholders Association grouping 350 farmers with about 765 hectares of plantations at Pelalawan, Riau province, has just proven that it was not impossible at all to get sustainability certificates as long as the farmers are highly disciplined in implementing best farm practices.

These growers were the first independent smallholders (not managerially tied with palm oil companies) who gained certificates under the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) scheme.

Their leader Sunarno symbolically received the RSPO certificate from Vice Minister of Trade Bayu Krishnamurti at the opening ofthe RSPO 11th annual conference in Medan, North Sumatra, on Tuesday.

" It took about four months to sell to our members the importance of sustainability through the best farm practices and another one year for the audit process by an independent certifying body before we got the certificates," Sunarno told reporters here on Wednesday.

He said his group received assistance from Asian Agri plantation group, Unilever and conservation organization WWF to build up their capacity in order to meet all the principles and criteria imposed by the RSPO.

"But the best agricultural practices, including good pesticide and fertilizer management, reduced our production costs and increased our farm yield from 1.5 tons of fruit bunches per ha monthly to between 2 and 2.5 tons," Sunarno added.

Asian Agri General Manager Freddy Widjaya said his company assigned full time one farm extension worker to provide the smallholders with farm guidance and extension services to enable them to fulfill all the principles of sustainability.

"These farmers are not managerially linked with Asian Agri under the nucleus estates and smallholder scheme, but we are nevertheless committed to helping improve their farm practices," Widjaya added.

Unilever Director for sustainable sourcing development Cherie Tan, said her company has been committed to buying palm oil from the Amanah Smallholders Association at a premium price for the next five years.

Unilever also has committed to procuring only certified sustainable palm oil by next year for its world-wide operations which require 1.5 million tons of crude palm oil.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, more than 40 percent of the estimated 9 million ha of oil palm plantations in the country are owned by 3. 6 million smallholders, and Riau province alone has 1.1 million ha of smallholder plantations.