11 Transforming Exploitative Land-Based Economy to Reduce …
235
Sabah and Sarawak have designed several schemes to technically support the small
farmers, the situation in Kalimantan is less progressive as the governments generally lack capacity in implementing measures like these (Goh et al. 2018). While
lacking direct financial assistance like seedling assistance schemes, measures like
establishing small farmers’ cooperatives were created among the farmers themselves
as observed in West Kalimantan (own fieldwork). Such engagement has shown to be
crucial in overcoming the constraints for productivity. The previous ‘plasma scheme’
designed to assist small farmers by attaching them to large companies in early 2000s
was proven to be quite unsuccessful with numerous cases of dispute between both
parties reported (Potter 2016; Goh et al. 2018).
Labour shortage is yet another factor that drags down the overall performance
(Murphy 2014). Lack of labourers implies sub-optimal management of plantation
with longer harvesting round (Sheil et al. 2009; Sayer et al. 2012). Most plantations
in Kalimantan relying heavily on extra-local workers from other Indonesian islands
for daily operation. With the availability of other opportunities at home due to the
booming economic development across Indonesia, the plantation jobs away from
home have become less attractive (Selvadurai et al. 2018). Increasing wages and
partly substituting with machines are some immediate measures, but this largely
depends on the overall profitability, i.e. market price of CPO in the long run.
Considering these tough challenges from both natural and human aspects, monocultural intensification on the upstream to maximise economic productivity does not
show high potential as expected from experimental breakthrough in yield. Rather, it
seems to be more about combating the multiple emerging problems to prevent yield
declining in the future (Rasmussen et al. 2018).
Mobilising Under-Utilised Low Carbon and Degraded Land
Resources
Shifting future production away from high carbon and biodiversity land is another
direct way to keep pace with demand growth yet not adding pressure on the environment. Land resources with the following criteria, or so-called Under-utilised Low
Carbon (ULC) land, may potentially be used: (i) the current economic productivity
of the land is insignificant or low compared to its optimal potential and (ii) the level
of carbon stock is low so that land utilisation is unlikely to incur additional carbon
stock loss and negative ecological impacts (e.g. forest and wetland must be excluded)
(Goh et al. 2017). In this direction, possible scenarios of further oil palm expansion
on ULC land has been extensively investigated by various studies (Austin et al. 2015;
Mosnier et al. 2017; Sumarga and Hein 2016; WRI 2012). Figure 11.5 illustrates the
extent of low carbon land areas that do not belong to the high carbon or functional
land classes. By 2015, the Kalimantan provinces have significant areas of low carbon
land, amounted to roughly 18 Mha.
235
Sabah and Sarawak have designed several schemes to technically support the small
farmers, the situation in Kalimantan is less progressive as the governments generally lack capacity in implementing measures like these (Goh et al. 2018). While
lacking direct financial assistance like seedling assistance schemes, measures like
establishing small farmers’ cooperatives were created among the farmers themselves
as observed in West Kalimantan (own fieldwork). Such engagement has shown to be
crucial in overcoming the constraints for productivity. The previous ‘plasma scheme’
designed to assist small farmers by attaching them to large companies in early 2000s
was proven to be quite unsuccessful with numerous cases of dispute between both
parties reported (Potter 2016; Goh et al. 2018).
Labour shortage is yet another factor that drags down the overall performance
(Murphy 2014). Lack of labourers implies sub-optimal management of plantation
with longer harvesting round (Sheil et al. 2009; Sayer et al. 2012). Most plantations
in Kalimantan relying heavily on extra-local workers from other Indonesian islands
for daily operation. With the availability of other opportunities at home due to the
booming economic development across Indonesia, the plantation jobs away from
home have become less attractive (Selvadurai et al. 2018). Increasing wages and
partly substituting with machines are some immediate measures, but this largely
depends on the overall profitability, i.e. market price of CPO in the long run.
Considering these tough challenges from both natural and human aspects, monocultural intensification on the upstream to maximise economic productivity does not
show high potential as expected from experimental breakthrough in yield. Rather, it
seems to be more about combating the multiple emerging problems to prevent yield
declining in the future (Rasmussen et al. 2018).
Mobilising Under-Utilised Low Carbon and Degraded Land
Resources
Shifting future production away from high carbon and biodiversity land is another
direct way to keep pace with demand growth yet not adding pressure on the environment. Land resources with the following criteria, or so-called Under-utilised Low
Carbon (ULC) land, may potentially be used: (i) the current economic productivity
of the land is insignificant or low compared to its optimal potential and (ii) the level
of carbon stock is low so that land utilisation is unlikely to incur additional carbon
stock loss and negative ecological impacts (e.g. forest and wetland must be excluded)
(Goh et al. 2017). In this direction, possible scenarios of further oil palm expansion
on ULC land has been extensively investigated by various studies (Austin et al. 2015;
Mosnier et al. 2017; Sumarga and Hein 2016; WRI 2012). Figure 11.5 illustrates the
extent of low carbon land areas that do not belong to the high carbon or functional
land classes. By 2015, the Kalimantan provinces have significant areas of low carbon
land, amounted to roughly 18 Mha.