GAPOKTAN Tanjung Sehati Desa Mekar Jaya Tabir Selatan
Kabupaten Merangin Propinsi Jambi
Indonesia
GAPOKTAN
TANJUNG
SEHATI ADOPTING SUSTAINABILITY AS CULTURE
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History of Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati
Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati was officially
founded in 2009 under the name of
Gapoktan Sawit Lestari. The organization
aims at promoting sustainable palm oil
production in Jambi Province to improve
the welfare of independent farmers. Since
2013 it has turned into a legal entity
(corporation #80 dated 8 May 2013). The
name was changed from Gapoktan Sawit
Lestari to Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati – the
former having already been registered at
the district government – because the
government does not allow a village to have
more than one gapoktan. Gapoktan
Tanjung Sehati was founded and initiated
by farmers. Currently, it incorporates 6
farmer’s groups, covering 227 households,
and manages 346.57 Ha of lands. In fact,
there are 500 independent farmer
households in Mekar Jaya Village but some
have refused to join due to their bad past
experience with organizations.
The main objective of the creation of the
gapoktan is to address problems faced by
farmers, in particular the independent oil
palm farmers in Mekar Jaya Village. Among
the problems to be addressed are as
follows:
1. The low price of independent
farmer’s fresh fruit bunches: they
were priced IDR200-300/kg lower.
While the difference did not seem
much, if multiplied by the total
production, it was quite a large
amount of money the farmers could
have enjoyed.
2. Little access to information, leading
to poor knowledge of oil palm
cultivation. Very often, the farmers
managed their plantations based
solely on their experience, leading to
poor harvests and low prices. This
lack of knowledge was obvious with
regard to the quality of seeds they
“As smallholders, we have
never imagined we could
obtain the RSPO certificate for
successfully implementing the
RSPO principles and criteria –
given the sheer number of them
– and we have never dreamed
as well that the changes we
have made – particularly in
changing the way we view
plantations and manage
organizations – have also
changed how the government
view independent farmers in
Jambi Province.” Mr. Solikin,
Secretary of Gapoktan Tanjung
Sehati.
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were using. About 80% of farmers in
the province used a type of seed
called Dura, with no alternatives due
to the lack of access to information
on good seeds and access to getting
them.
3. Poor support from the local
government and even from the
companies operating in the vicinity,
especially with regard to support for
working capital, market and capacity
building.
At the core of the problems, according to
the farmers, was that they were not
organized. This led to:
1. High dependence on middlemen to
market their products. Even to date,
almost all the independent farmers
in the province have relied on
middlemen. As a matter of fact,
middlemen are not to blame
because they have been helping the
farmers to market the products
while the government, which should
have been there to help, has never
been present. They have also been
helping the farmers with working
capital while the government seems
to have never thought of lending a
hand. This means that middlemen
have been the farmer’s ‘savior’, and
are also better than the government
although they have never made the
farmers prosper.
2. No access to information, markets
and others that would enable the
farmers to change their conditions.
Organizing themselves is the key to
all these blocked opportunities. The
government, companies and other
parties will never support farmers
individually. To gain access, for
example, to superior seeds, farmers
should be incorporated in an
organization. To sell the fruits to
companies, farmers have to have a
contract with them, which requires,
among others, that farmers be
incorporated in an organization.
To address the problems facing them, in
particular those relating to their products,
the independent farmers of Mekar Jaya
initiated the creation of an organization in
the form of a gapoktan.
Background of the farmers
The farmers of Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati are
migrants relocated from Java under the
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government’s transmigration program
during 1980-1984. Each was given 2.25 Ha
of land to grow perennials (LU2), 1 Ha to
grow food crops (LU1) and 0.5 Ha for
housing. In 1986, PT Sari Aditya Loka (an oil
palm company subsidiary of the ASTRA
Group) began operating in the area under
the nucleus estate scheme. The 2.25-
hectare lands were then ‘partnered’ by the
company (i.e. used as the company’s
smallholding [kebun plasma]). The other
government-given lands remains to be
managed by farmers to grow food crops,
vegetables and other plants.
Throughout the 2000s the migrants also
planted their 1-hectare lands with oil palm
as the lands were not suitable to grow
wetland species such as rice, which they
used to grow in Java. Nine villages in the
area now have independent farmers
incorporated in a gapoktan (Gapoktan
Tanjung Sehati) with the average size of
plantations being 700 Ha per village. The
situation has encouraged some neighboring
villages to start building their own
organizations although they have not
thought of implementing the RSPO
principles and criteria, let alone to obtain
the RSPO certificate.
Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati and a
sustainable palm oil initiative
Since its establishment, Gapoktan Tanjung
Sehati has been actively taking part in
RSPO’s meetings. Its first involvement was
in the 7-th Meeting in Bali in 2008. Then,
the Chair of the Gapoktan presented in the
8th Meeting in Istana Kuala Lumpur Hotel in
2009. Since then, Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati
has been interested in getting involved to
promote sustainable palm oil by improving
Organic Pertilizer application in plantation
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the organization and agricultural practices
and has started to take environmental
preservation into consideration. Their
efforts to implement the RSPO Principles
and Criteria were not easy as the RSPO
itself could not guarantee better prices for
RSPO-certified fresh fruit bunches.
Another difficult thing was that the
company, which had been helping the
farmers (i.e. providing agricultural training
and buying gapoktan’s products), was a
non-RSPO member, thus buying the
products at the price set by the
government, not that set for RSPO-certified
products. Although PT SAL is not an RSPO
member, the gapoktan expresses deep
appreciation for its efforts to help the
farmers by providing agricultural trainings
and other trainings for free. Such trainings
have greatly helped the farmers to
implement good agricultural practices.
Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati has been
successful in implementing the RSPO
Principles and Criteria, indicated by the
granting of an RSPO certificate to their
members’ operation on 16 June 2014. The
member farmers are in fact fully aware that
sustainable palm oil goes beyond technical
implementation of the principles and
criteria, and the certification, and that it is
about how to adopt best agricultural and
corporate practices. For them, certification
is an ongoing process to mainstream the
principles of sustainability.
The long process in implementing the
RSPO’s principles and criteria has inspired
the farmers to manage their lands wisely,
avoiding chemical-based exploitation. The
farmers have also been implementing some
sustainable practices that are not listed in
the RSPO Principles and Criteria, among
others:
1. Mainstreaming organic fertilizers
(cow dung) instead of chemical
ones. Since 2012, the gapoktan has
been provided by the district
government of Merangin with 35
cows to breed and a composter unit.
The cows have since multiplied and
their urine and dung have been used
to fertilize the lands. For the
farmers, these organic fertilizers not
only reduce the fertilizing cost but
also improve the soil, maintaining its
health and fertility and helping to
produce good fresh fruit bunches.
2. Mutual aid (gotong royong) culture:
Once abandoned, the mutual aid
culture has been revived and
continuously promoted. Among the
work done cooperatively is the
building of the so-called production
road (i.e. to ease transport of their
products) and land clearing. The
revival of the culture has also
revived the social ties, which was
once diminishing.
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Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati as a teacher
and school for independent farmers in
Jambi Province
Along with Yayasan SETARA Jambi,
Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati has been
organizing trainings to increase the
institutional capacity and knowledge of the
RSPO of other farmers in the province. The
objective is to make the farmers more
prosperous while maintaining the
sustainability of their livelihoods for their
next generations. Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati
serves not only as a teacher but also a
school for independent farmers who are
eager to learn directly how to organize
themselves, manage and strengthen the
organization, as well as making it
independent. Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati
warmly welcomes any farmer who wants to
learn.
We are available at :
www.setarajambi.org
facebook : Gapoktan Tanjung Sehati
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