Establishment of an Agricultural Facility (AF) in Seruyan for Smallholders Capacity Building
The purpose of this activity is to establish a facility (called the Agricultural Facility or AF) to provide direct support and training for capacity building for 1,000 smallholder oil palm farmers. The pilot project proposed here would develop rigorously researched model for the Facility, and establish a train-the-trainer program for 100 farmers who will later upscale the program to train 1,000 farmers. The Facility will: ● Serve as a training academy to build the knowledge and capacity base among smallholders on Good Agricultural Practices and other key principles of sustainable agriculture; ● Provide access to agricultural inputs including seeds, fertilizers, and a nursery . ● Develop partnerships with the local and regional financial community to develop mechanism for the extension of low interest loans to the smallholders.
The AF was successfully established in February 2018. It currently operates in within the Seruyan district government office with two staff taking care of the AF's daily operations. Many parties were involved in the establishment of the AF, including the Government of Seruyan district, NGOs, oil palm companies and Gapoktan (Golongan Kelompok Tani, i.e.: smallholder groups). The wide-stakeholder involvement is in line with the Seruyan district commitment for the production of sustainable palm oil. At the time of establishment, the parties have collaborated to map 2,981 independent smallholders (with total area of 6,657 hectare). Other activities that have been completed by the AF in the span of the projects are: 1. Training of trainers program for 100 smallholders - which involved the development of training curriculum, leveraging the expertise from the University of Gadjah Mada in Yogyakarta 2. Develop mill-smallholder integrated program - which involved collaboration with local oil palm mills to train 100 smallholders 3. Develop the AF five-year workplan highlighting the capacity building and support for smallholders, as well as strategies on how the AF can self-sustain itself. The accomplishment of this activity is heavily dependent to the government roles and support. The success of the establishment was due to the commitment invested by the Seruyan government throughout the entire project. The AF is currently running on the funds provided in the project, as well as the funds obtained from the multi-stakeholder collaboration. Currently, insufficient funding is seen as the main challenge for the AF to operate. Due to the insufficient funding, the AF is not operating in its full capacity - it only provides training and is not currently providing agricultural inputs to smallholders. The AF has targeted to have a more robust financial mechanism in place in five years to help self-sustain itself without relying on external funds. The agricultural input service will be available to smallholders in 2022 (based on the AF five-year workplan).
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