Medan (ANTARA News) - The Association of Indonesian Oilpalm Farmers (Apkasindo) says the government had been lax in keeping abreast of foreign control over oil-palm plantations in the country.<\/p>\n
Apaskindo Secretary General Asmar Arsjad said here on Tuesday the government had been off-guard with regard to foreign land ownership. \"This will lead to a take-over of palm-oil fields by them as transactions are made illicitly,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Asmar said the inventory of land under foreign parties` control had now even become unclear following the implementation of regional autonomy.<\/p>\n
He said Apkasindo estimated almost one million hectares of oil-palm plantations in Indonesia were controlled by foreign parties.<\/p>\n
He expressed concern that the government did not have any accurate data on it. \"Following the implementation of regional autonomy ownership of oil-palm plantations has become unclear because there was no record about it as ownership was gained through third parties,\" he said.<\/p>\n
He said he hoped the government would soon put the situation in order through implementation of a one-gate policy in the issuance of licenses to get authentic data.<\/p>\n
According to Apkasindo the government had to pay attention to the problem because it was related with land availability for local oil palm plantations.<\/p>\n
\"We can accept the presence of foreign parties but the government needs to be careful with regard to land ownership by foreign parties,\" he said.(*)<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/foreign-firms-control-oil-palm-fields-in-ri-apkasindo-says-1193204889", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }