- The new guidelines are aimed at helping small palm oil farmers in Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer, ensure their product is deforestation-free.
- This will increase demand for sustainably produced goods and help them gain a foothold in demanding markets.
- In particular, the smallholder toolkit aims to address the Indonesian government’s main complaint about new European Union regulations banning the import of deforestation-linked products: that smallholder farmers are the least able to comply with the regulations and therefore will be the most affected.
- The toolkit could also contribute to Indonesia’s climate goals by encouraging smallholder farmers to adopt more sustainable agricultural practices and choose to conserve rather than cut down forests.
JAKARTA — An NGO working with Indonesian smallholder farmers has developed a set of guidelines aimed at helping palm oil growers prove their products are deforestation-free and gain a foothold in a market that is increasingly demanding sustainably produced goods.
Launched on June 24, the Deforestation-Free Smallholder Toolkit is the first of its kind, a participatory, step-by-step guide for smallholder farming groups to protect forests and cultivate land sustainably.
To implement the toolkit, smallholder farmers must go through six steps, starting with preparation and information dissemination, during which communities are briefed on the toolkit and how it can benefit their group or village.
Communities then map all the forests and land cover on their village lands. They then identify forest areas with high carbon stocks (HCS) and high conservation values (HCV), such as ancestral lands and biodiversity-rich lands. This step is important to distinguish between forest areas that should be protected and degraded forest areas that can be developed.
At the end of the process, communities develop Integrated Conservation and Land Use Plans (ICLUPs). These plans contain details about how village and community lands will be used and managed. For example, a village may decide to protect all HCS and HCV areas and prescribe penalties for those who violate customary forest management. It may also decide to implement ecological agriculture and agroforestry to maintain local livelihoods while protecting HCS and HCV forests.
At each step, smallholder farmers must give their Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) to ensure that the toolkit truly serves their communities and prevent future conflicts.
Overall, the toolkit aims to support smallholder farmers in implementing deforestation-free agricultural practices and give them the opportunity to decide for themselves what is best for their livelihoods and their land.
According to Grant Rosoman, senior forestry adviser at Greenpeace International and a member of the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA), a widely supported mechanism used in the toolkit, this is the only toolkit in the world that targets deforestation by smallholder farmers.
While mechanisms like the HCSA have long existed to help large companies tackle deforestation and protect forests within their concessions, there was no such toolkit tailored specifically to small farmers, he said.
That left small farmers to fend for themselves, Rosoman said.
“There is a situation where small farmers are left behind because there is no methodology available to them,” he said at the toolkit launch in Jakarta. “Developing this methodology over the last six or seven years has helped to improve that situation.”
The toolkit was developed in collaboration with HCSA, the Indonesian Smallholder Oil Palm Farmers Association (SPKS), Forest Conservation Farmers Foundation (4F), Greenpeace and the High Conservation Value Network (HCVN).
The development process included piloting the toolkit with smallholder farmers in West Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo, over a four-year period to ensure the methodology was easy to apply and well-suited to local community conditions.
The smallholder farmers who participated in the trial included members of the indigenous Dayak Hibun ethnic group, who were heavily involved in the development process.
“When this toolkit was piloted in West Kalimantan, I saw with my own eyes that it was indeed developed with input from smallholder farmers, indigenous peoples and local communities,” said Valens Andi, a smallholder farmer in Sangau district, West Kalimantan. “I have personally seen the positive impact.”
During the pilot, smallholder farmers were able to identify 2,727 hectares (6,739 acres) of ancestral forest to protect. The community has mapped 364 hectares (900 acres) and developed a plan to manage and protect these areas, said Tirza Pandelaki, 4F’s executive director.
“We know that zero deforestation is possible and achievable for smallholder farmers,” she said. “The proof is in the fact that many farmers have the capacity to protect their forests. [during the trial in West Kalimantan].”
This dispels the notion that small farmers are incapable of sustainably cultivating the land: they are often blamed for Indonesia’s deforestation and therefore excluded from the market, SPKS chairman Sabaruddin said.
With the toolkit available to smallholder farmers, they can now prove to the market that their products are deforestation-free and enjoy fairer market access and pricing for their products, he added. This is particularly important as global markets, such as the European Union, which is the biggest importer of palm oil from Indonesia, the world’s largest palm oil producer, increasingly demand that products be deforestation-free.
EUDR
In 2023, the EU adopted the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), banning the import of commodities such as palm oil that have been illegally produced on deforested land after December 31, 2020, or whose origin cannot be traced.
The Indonesian government has protested the new regulations, saying they will disproportionately hit smallholder farmers who manage a total of 6.72 million hectares (16.6 million acres) of oil palm plantations across the country.
A survey of independent smallholder farmers in four palm oil producing regions conducted by Indonesian environmental NGO Madani in 2022 found that most farmers had difficulty ensuring traceability due to a lack of transaction records. Many also did not have clear title to their land, making it difficult for them to comply with the EUDR’s legality requirements.
That’s why these farmers need more support to join deforestation-free supply chains and avoid the vicious cycle of unsustainable production, smallholder advocates say.
And this is where the new deforestation-free toolkit could help, its developers say.
“HCSA’s Smallholder Toolkit enables smallholder farmers to demonstrate that they can produce goods and conserve forests and biodiversity while respecting the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities, so they can partner with larger producers and buyers and become a vital link in sustainable supply chains and markets as part of sustainable production landscapes,” said HCSA Secretary General Jesús Cordero.
The EU itself does not recognise third-party certification as a means of compliance, so such a toolkit would not replace the need for buyers importing covered products into the EU to carry out due diligence. However, these importers could use data provided by certification schemes or other third-party verification systems to complete due diligence statements, which would facilitate full market access to the EU.
These could also include new toolkits, according to Eloise O’Carroll, programme manager for forestry, natural resources and energy at the EU Delegation to Indonesia, which she said would “position smallholder farmers in the direction of EUDR readiness.”
Greenpeace’s Rosoman said European lawyers were confident the new toolkit provided enough evidence to prove there was no deforestation and therefore compliance with the EUDR.
Excluding smallholder oil palm farmers from the EU supply chain means the market misses out on their potential contribution. Although Indonesia’s smallholder oil palm farmers often only manage a few hectares of land each, their collective impact is significant, accounting for around 40% of Indonesia’s palm oil production.
“The EUDR and other international regulations cannot ignore the huge potential that smallholders can contribute to deforestation-free supply chains,” Cordero said.
To ensure that small farmers aren’t left behind, O’Carroll said the EU has a number of initiatives to support them, including the global Team Europe Initiative (TEI) on deforestation-free value chains, in which the EU and member states are providing 70 million euros ($76 million) to help partner countries transition to deforestation-free and legal supply chains.
This support will include technical assistance and capacity building to partner governments and producers on key issues such as traceability, geolocation and land use mapping.
“We often hear that Indonesia is not ready yet and that small farmers will be left out of the supply chain, but the reality is they are already left out of the rest of the supply chain, so we want to do our best to ensure that they have practices in place that will actually enable them to export to the EU market,” O’Carroll said.
The role of government
Kiki Taufik, global project leader for Greenpeace’s Indonesia Forest Campaign, said empowering smallholder farmers to protect forests and produce sustainably would benefit them and help the Indonesian government meet its climate and forest conservation goals, even if there is no demand for deforestation-free products from the global market.
Forestry and other land use (FOLU), including deforestation for oil palm plantations, accounts for the largest share of Indonesia’s greenhouse gas emissions. The government has set a target for the sector to absorb more carbon than it emits, known as net FOLU sinks, by 2030.
Better forest management by smallholders can help in this regard, and governments should support them by providing legal protection to smallholders who want to conserve forests rather than cut them down, said Mansuetus Dalt, a member of the SPKS Advisory Board.
“Legally speaking, these farmers can just cut down forest to make way for oil palm plantations, but they choose to protect the forest,” he said.
Mansuetus said the government should issue a regulation similar to the moratorium on cutting down primary forests to make way for oil palm plantations, giving legal protection to smallholder farmers who choose to protect forests. A previous moratorium was in place from 2018 to 2021.
Mansuetus added that markets that demand deforestation-free products, such as the EU, should encourage smallholder farmers to produce sustainable goods by offering incentives, such as premium prices.
“We need support from all stakeholders to help smallholder farmers implement best practices and continue to conserve forests without abandoning local knowledge and culture,” said Valens, a smallholder farmer in West Kalimantan.
Banner image: Soil fertilization process in oil palm plantations. Image by Cooke Vieira/CIFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
Feedback: Use this form to send a message to the author of this post. If you would like to post a public comment, you can do so at the bottom of the page.
Article by Hayat
printing
