German chemical and biotech giant BASF has been working in collaboration with international civil society organisation Solidaridad, leading cosmetics chain Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) and the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to support sustainable palm oil production and support smallholder farmers in Lampung, Indonesia.
With the support of the Indonesian government, Project Lampung had provided technical support and training to more than 1,000 independent palm oil smallholders since its launch in 2018, BASF said on 20 November.
The programme had also helped 313 farmers in the Way Kanan Regency achieve RSPO certification, the first certified smallholder group in the state, the company said.
“[It marks] the achievement of one of the primary objectives of Project Lampung, to have nearly one-third of the supported smallholder farmers achieve certification according to the Smallholder Standard of RSPO within three years,” BASF Care Chemicals senior vice president Marcelo Lu said.
Prior to the launch of the scheme, BASF said the smallholders had limited exposure to sustainable palm oil production practices and the co-operative did not have a strategic focus on supporting farmers.
An educational programme had helped palm oil farmers improve their knowledge of sustainable production, including, for example, an awareness about the importance of planting certified seedlings, the company said.
As part of the project, farmers were given access to certified seedlings to improve productivity.
“It is only [the smallholder farmers] who can transform the palm oil supply chain and we were happy to assist them with the technical support and knowledge needed to adopt climate smart production practices,” Solidaridad Indonesia country manager Yeni Fitriyanti said.
With the support of a strengthened cooperative, the project partners worked with the Indonesian government and other local organisations to conduct social and environmental impact assessments. They also mapped farmers' fields and uploaded all relevant data to the RSPO database to verify that no deforestation or land conversion had taken place.
