Author: Alfin Heriagus
“We need to look at the fact that Indonesia has the largest oil palm plantation area in the world with a total of 16.38 million hectares from Sumatra to Papua. Even though we are still hit by a pandemic, in reality, palm oil production is still increasing. This is clear evidence that the contribution of the palm oil industry cannot be underestimated,” said the Indonesian Minister of Cooperatives and SMEs, Teten Masduki, in his remarks on the video show of the eve talk show “Road Map for Development and Guidance of Oil Palm SMEs in Indonesia.”
The development of palm oil-based SMEs and cooperatives must continue to be optimized, Teten said. According to him, in 2021, total palm oil production reached 49.7 million tons, while the workforce absorbed in the palm oil industry reached 16.2 million with details of 4.42 direct workers, and 12 million indirect workers. To increase this potential, Teten hopes that all stakeholders in Indonesia can work together to optimize the empowerment of palm oil-based SMEs and cooperatives.
He appreciated UI’s steps to help encourage the growth and development of palm oil in Indonesia, in collaboration with the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDP-KS), as an effort to realize a sustainable, value-added, and prosperous palm oil business. Teten added that UI has an important role in creating green economic growth, through the role of curriculum, research, and business incubators in encouraging social entrepreneurship.
The talk show “Roadmap for the Development and Guidance of Palm Oil SMEs in Indonesia” was organized by BPDP-KS, Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia, together with the Small and Medium Enterprises Center of the Faculty of Economics and Business UI (SMEs Center FEB UI). In addition to the talk show, the event, which was attended by Helmi Muhansyah (Head of UKMK Division of BPDP-KS), and T.M. Zakir Sjakur Machmud (Head SMEs Center of Faculty Economy Business Universitas Indonesia) introduced a book with the title “Flashback of the Palm Oil SME Empowerment Program The Process of Encouraging Palm Oil SMEs to Improve Class”.
“This book is a form of documentation of training and mentoring activities for Palm Oil SMEs in West Kotawaringin Regency, Central Kalimantan in 2021,” said Zakir. It contains experiences and stories from volunteers and Palm Oil SMEs that can serve as lessons learned and references for relevant parties to formulate a suitable mentoring model for Palm Oil SMEs in their respective regions.
The facts of success or achievements in the mentoring program presented in this book are clear evidence that Palm Oil SMEs have a positive contribution to the development of the people’s economy. “This is important for the public to know, because although SMEs dominate business in Indonesia, their development is still far from expectations. Assistance is needed for these SMEs so that they can be more developed and empowered, especially in this pandemic era,” Zakir explained.
The mentoring activity is carried out with two schemes, namely coaching and mentoring. Coaching is considered a process of training and supervising a person to improve their business performance, while mentoring is a counseling process carried out to guide and support entrepreneurs in business development.
The tangible results of this mentoring activity are a 36.8% increase in sales, a 29% increase in average monthly business profits, and 90% of SMEs in Kotawaringin now have licenses, and all participating SMEs now have manual financial bookkeeping reports. In fact, 30% of them have adopted the financial application SI APIK (financial reporting system from Bank Indonesia).
For marketing activities, 85% of SMEs now have social media accounts for business, and 70% of them are actively marketing their products online. These successful facts are proof that palm oil and its derivative products have a positive contribution to the development of the people’s economy.
Kegiatan pendampingan dilaksanakan pada Selasa (7/12) di Hotel Swiss Bell Residence, Jakarta, merupakan salah satu langkah UKM Center FEB UI untuk mendorong kelapa sawit agar bisa naik kelas.
