GIMNI Emphasises Palm Oil Technology Revolution to Strengthen Global Competitiveness
Jakarta (ANTARA) - Executive Director of the Indonesian Vegetable Oil Industry Association (GIMNI), Sahat Sinaga, emphasised the urgency of a low-emission technology revolution in the national palm oil industry to address sustainability challenges and strengthen competitiveness in the global market.
“We must start thinking now, revolutionise the technology. Because I see that the current technology is outdated,” said Sahat at an iftar event with media colleagues in Jakarta, Wednesday evening.
At the event, which was also attended by the Indonesian Biofuel Producers Association (Aprobi) and the Indonesian Oleochemical Industry Association (Apolin), Sahat said he had conveyed this idea after being invited by the high-tech company IES Group Global in China, which is capable of monitoring productivity and production quality comprehensively from the initial to the final process.
In addition, Sahat was also assigned by the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) to hold a dialogue with a Chinese institution under the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE), namely the Chinese Society of Environmental Sciences (CSES), regarding the transformation of low-emission palm oil.
In the international forum, he challenged the old perspective that assessed the quality of oil only based on chemical composition, without considering the content of nutrients important for health.
Sahat gave the example that palm oil has an antioxidant content of around 1,150 parts per million (PPM), much higher than some other oils which are only around 20 PPM and without tocotrienol.
He believes that changing the processing technology that has been used for 104 years in Indonesia is the key for the industry to transform towards a more efficient and environmentally friendly system.
With the assumption that the price of carbon is 15 US dollars per ton, the potential value of carbon trading is close to 700 million US dollars per year.
To realise this transformation, he calculated that funding of around IDR 345 trillion is needed, including IDR 171 trillion for replanting 2.5 million hectares and IDR 141 trillion for modernising machinery.
Through a sustainable programme until 2032, the productivity of farmers, which currently averages 9.3 tons of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) per hectare per year, is targeted to increase to 21.3 tons per hectare per year.
Sahat is optimistic that the technology revolution, investment support, and the use of satellites to detect Ganoderma disease will bring the Indonesian palm oil industry into a new era of low emissions and high added value.