Indonesia's stagnant national palm oil productivity requires an immediate solution. If this situation is not addressed promptly, Indonesian palm oil productivity will decline in the future. This is undesirable given the increasing demand for palm oil as a vegetable oil, including its use in biofuel, namely biodiesel. The launch of the B50 biodiesel program demands increased palm oil productivity. However, the question remains: why palm oil? Aren't there other crops that can produce oil with a comparable yield for biodiesel production? Nyamplung is a strong candidate for this; read more details here.
In palm oil, productivity can be increased through the use of superior seeds, replanting, and land intensification. In terms of land area, replanting palm oil plantations, with an ideal target of 5% per year, is very significant. With Indonesia's current 16.8 million hectares of oil palm plantations, that translates to 0.84 million hectares per year. Besides the high costs, the resulting biomass waste, or palm oil trunks, is also substantial. This clearly holds potential for an environmentally friendly bioeconomy-based industry, or circular economy.
With an area of Indonesia's palm oil plantations of around 16.8 million hectares, 9 million hectares are managed by private companies, 550 thousand hectares are owned by state-owned companies (PTPN), 6.1 million hectares belong to people's plantations or small farmers and the rest have not been verified. And based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (2024), recorded 10 provinces in Indonesia with the largest oil palm plantations in sequence, namely Riau province with 3.49 million ha, Central Kalimantan province with 2.03 million ha, North Sumatra province with 2.01 million ha, West Kalimantan province with 1.82 million ha, South Sumatra province with 1.40 million ha, East Kalimantan province with 1.32 million ha, Jambi province with 1.19 million ha, South Kalimantan province with 497.2 thousand ha, Aceh province with 487.5 thousand ha, and West Sumatra province with 379.6 thousand ha. And a total of 26 provinces in Indonesia as centers of palm oil plantations.
The palm oil industry, as one of the national strategic industries, receives significant government support, including the People's Palm Oil Replanting (PSR), which remains a national strategic program, although its realization has not yet reached the target. South Sumatra, as one of the national palm oil plantation centers, also recorded the highest PSR realization. PSR realization in 2025 is approximately 40,000 hectares, or 33% (one-third) of the target of 120,000 ha. This represents a slight increase compared to 2024, which was only 31% of that year's target. Specifically, South Sumatra has replanted approximately 75,000 ha of smallholder palm oil plantations from 2017 to 2025.
The government is targeting a national PSR of 50,000 ha for 2026, a much more realistic figure than in previous years, with South Sumatra province targeting 5,750 ha. However, given Indonesia's oil palm plantation area, the 2024 and 2025 targets of 120,000 ha are very low, especially for 2026, which is only 50,000 ha. Under these conditions, efforts that can be accelerated to increase national palm oil productivity are through the use of superior seeds and land intensification.
Furthermore, ganoderma can lead to the death of palm oil trees. Ganoderma, caused by the fungus Ganoderma boninense, attacks the palm oil's root system, disrupting nutrient and water transport. The process is very slow and is only detected when the infection is severe, resulting in yellowing leaves, drooping crowns, and even plant death. Waste from ganoderma-infected trunks must be removed or destroyed from the plantation to prevent further spread. Like waste from palm oil trunks from replanting, this waste must also be properly managed.
The issue of biomass waste from palm oil trees, which covers thousands of hectares, also presents a challenge. With such a large volume of old palm oil trees, utilizing them to create value-added products is crucial. With such a large volume, biomass processing plants or industries can be established and operate optimally, without worrying about raw material shortages. Products such as pellets, briquettes, and biochar are made from this waste biomass from old palm oil trunks. Old, dead palm oil trunks, often left unattended on land, should be utilized to create these useful, value-added products.
As shown in the diagram above, the potential for utilizing biomass waste, particularly oil palm trunks, is enormous. In the future, industrializing bioeconomics into various products is highly feasible. Palm oil trunk waste should not only pollute the environment and increase costs for palm oil farmers, but instead, it should become a profitable industrial raw material.
