Strengthening Governance: Palm Oil Farmers' Proposal for Danantara Sumber Daya Indonesia
The Palm Oil Farmers’ Association of Indonesia (POPSI) believes Danantara Sumber Daya Indonesia (DSI) should function as a supervisor of the national palm oil trade system by developing an integrated digital trading platform from upstream to downstream and exports. POPSI Chairman Mansuetus Darto stated that DSI is better suited to serve as a verifier and supporting regulator within the national palm oil trade system.
‘POPSI believes the state, government, and/or DSI should properly function as regulators, verifiers, and supervisors of the national palm oil trade,’ Mansuetus said in a statement on Friday (29 May 2026).
In the context of national palm oil trade governance, POPSI supports modernising the trade system through transparent and integrated digitisation. However, he cautioned that digitisation must not lead to trade centralisation or create new monopolies that increase market dependency and stifle healthy competition.
‘Therefore, POPSI proposes building a robust, comprehensive, and integrated national digital palm oil platform from upstream to downstream and exports,’ Mansuetus said.
The platform, he added, must integrate data on farmers’ production, palm oil mills (PKS), refineries, CPO stock, domestic and export transactions, licensing documents, payment flows, and real-time shipment tracking and export foreign exchange.
The system should also connect directly with Customs, the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDP), port authorities, surveyors, quarantine services, relevant ministries, the national logistics system, and the banking sector.
With this integrated digital oversight model, the state can maintain trade transparency, revenue monitoring, control of under-invoicing and transfer pricing practices, and accurate export tracking without extending trade bureaucracy or disrupting existing market mechanisms.
Furthermore, POPSI expects the government to provide regulatory certainty, particularly to ensure trade schemes and transaction flows until December 2026.
‘Additionally, DSI must prepare a work plan for palm oil trade in the market. With regulatory certainty, the industry ecosystem remains stable and transactions with palm oil farmers continue normally,’ he said.