Best Management Practice for Maximum Economic Yield in Oil Palm (BMP-OP II)

Following on the success of the first collaborative oil palm Best Management Practices (BMP) project at PT Asiatic Persada in Jambi Province, Indonesia, a second phase of BMP projects was initiated in 2006 to evaluate the wider applicability of the BMP concept. This new initiative seeks to establish new BMP projects with new collaborators at six sites spanning the main oil palm growing areas of Sumatra and Kalimantan in Indonesia. At each site, the project will run for 4 years. The first project in this new phase was initiated in July 2006 with PT Bakrie Sumatra Plantations Tbk, an Indonesian company with rubber and oil palm plantations in various locations in the country. This project is located at Kisaran, North Sumatra. The second project started in August 2006 in the oil palm plantations of PT Victorindo Alam Lestari, another Indonesian company >http://www.permatagroup.com/<, located at Desa Menanti in North Sumatra near the border with Riau Province. The third project was initiated in December 2006 with PT Tania Selatan, >http://www.wilmar-international.com/< part of one of the largest plantation groups in the world, located near Palembang in South Sumatra. The fourth project is expected to be initiated in January 2007 with PT Agronusa Investama Sambas, and its plantations located near Sambas in West Kalimantan.

Site visits have been planned to East and Central Kalimantan for the end of January 2007 for the purpose of selecting the last two sites for this new phase of the oil palm BMP project. It is expected that these last two projects will start before the end of 2007. Unlike the first project which involved a newly purchased neglected plantation and thus a low ‘yield entry level’, this new phase of BMP projects are being conducted in existing plantations that are generally already achieving yields that mirror the industry average or somewhat better. Successful implementation of this new phase of projects can therefore have a potentially greater impact on overall yield improvement in the Indonesian oil palm industry given the higher ‘yield entry level’, the sizeable operations of the project collaborators, and the geographic spread of the project sites.

Priorities in 2007 include the start of two new collaborative project sites in Indonesia and the first one or two regional workshops at established project sites to promote the BMP concept. Southeast Asia-03