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ttempts to provide sustainable palm oil products for the global market pose a challenge for smallholders, who often struggle to get their products certified.

Both the government and non-governmental organizations are working to address the issue by assisting small-scale oil palm farmers to get their hands on sustainable palm oil certificates.

The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a nonprofit multi-stakeholder organization on sustainable palm oil certification, claims it has helped smallholders in various ways, including through disbursing the funds needed for farmers to obtain certification.

“We have disbursed more than US$1 million for smallholders and have more to be distributed. Most of the money was distributed to Indonesia,” RSPO CEO Datuk Darrel Webber told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta on Monday.

The funds, he claimed, have helped around 90,000 smallholders across the country, both individual farmers or those who joined a farmers group, to obtain certification.

“We will try to find a way to educate them [farmers] in the most efficient ways [in planting and handling oil palm], as well as try to match them with potential buyers,” Webber said.

Certifying smallholders is seen as key to the industry’s sustainability, given they manage around 40 percent of the 12 hectares of land used for oil palm across the country. Around 2.5 ha is managed by smallholders, while 2 ha is managed by so-called plasma smallholders, who are smallholders tied to companies.

Obtaining sustainable palm oil certification, including certification issued by the RSPO, is deemed to benefit smallholders. Once they receive RSPO certification, they will be able to sell products to premium markets abroad and negotiate better prices.

Most oil palm farmers still sell their products through middlemen, who have greater power in controlling prices.

Because of the large number of smallholders in Indonesia, the RSPO is urging partners to help its supply bases that comprise plasma smallholders and mills, as stipulated in its time-bound plan.

“[The companies] will have long discussions with the smallholders. [It’s part of a] long term engagement,” Darrel said.

Despite the measures, only 25 percent of the 12 ha of all oil palm plantations across the country have been verified as sustainable, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

Meanwhile, the government has also been trying to get smallholders certified under the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) scheme.

While the ministry requires all palm oil stakeholders to hold the ISPO, farmers and other parties will be required to obtain the RSPO certification in order to be recognized in the international market, which only accepts the latter certification scheme.

“We are trying to convince all stakeholders to disburse the funds prioritized for helping farmers obtain ISPO certification through several measures,” said Bambang, the Agricultural Ministry’s plantation director general.

The plan itself is in its initial phase, as the ministry is waiting for the Finance Ministry to issue a ministerial regulation that allows the government to allocate more money for the program, including funds for farmers.

Many smallholders, however, have cast doubt over the program, arguing that the funds were inadequate to cover all the steps necessary to obtain certification.