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Palm oil has brought progress to the people of Riau Province, one of which is in Pelalawan Regency. All parties who come into contact work together so that the blessings of palm oil are felt together.
However, to achieve this progress requires confidence and patience to live together in Bumi Lancang Kuning. Just like the transmigration program community, not all of them are also able to survive and choose to turn back to their hometowns.
Cooperation with companies is important for oil palm smallholder communities. Where farmers have fresh fruit bunches and the company has a factory. Although the company also has a plantation, it still receives FFB from the community, such as PT Sari Lembah Subur (SLS) of Astra Agro Lestari Group in Pelalawan.
The company accepts partners from both FFB suppliers and other fields. From FFB supplier partners, there is an inspiring story from the figure of Sumari Aziz Bimantoro or often called Babe.
He became Astra’s best partner in Indonesia in 2022. He also received a Toyota Avanza car. “It was a gift from Astra Avanza, the first champion partner throughout Indonesia, a national champion from Aceh to Papua,” he said.
He is the owner of a platform in SP 4 Village, Pematang Tinggi, Kerumutan District, Pelalawan Regency. Azis says this is the biggest achievement he has ever had. “Being the number one company partner in Indonesia is an honor in itself,” he said.
So how did he get this achievement? Babe said she was also the manager of the Amanah Village Unit Cooperative, which also won the national championship twice.
As a partner of PT SLS, he had to ensure that the FFB managed by the cooperative could pass the mill. He educated many transmigration people in his cooperative until he finally got a delivery order (DO). He became a manager starting in 1993 and a year later was already a provincial champion, and then a national champion at the transmigration level.
“So I always carry a good name. But that’s my social work. I was once paid when I was chairman, but I didn’t take it, so I partnered with them, never asking for a project, but just partnering in business from a young age, from weighing myself, the first DO, I still carried a bag and weighed myself,” he said.
He also received training and seminars from PT SLS. Babe learned about palm oil, palm oil science, and palm oil business and then gave more training to farmer groups. Regarding palm oil, he said that Transmigration people were also blind to palm oil, so they were educated through Village Unit Cooperative (KUD).
“The first training on the tennis court was there, I still remember, I led the farmer groups when there were difficulties. I was also called to convince banks. I wanted to make sure that the credit agreement could be paid off in 15 years. Starting from zero, trans people themselves don’t understand, except for trans people from Medan who have started managing palm oil,” he said.
For his achievements, Babe has been invited to various regions at home and abroad for presentations. He has even been to Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Many people from outside, such as from Kalimantan, also came to him.
“Every time a guest from Kalimantan wants to plant, I do the presentation. It’s funny that I’m not a scholar who presented the head of the plantation department, the regent, if not the deputy regent because Kalimantan sent them here to learn,” he said.
Not only that, Babe has also presented in front of the Minister of Agriculture at the Ministry of Agriculture Office. He said that palm oil farmers contribute the most to the state apart from taxes and it is hoped that it will be used as well as possible.
After 4 years with the farmer group, Babe finally created his own business. The platform business is to find farmers’ FFB as a partner of PT SLS to be supplied to the factory.
“My business has grown to the point that I can rent a factory in Jambi. If I was not here, not partnering with Astra, I would not have been invited to other areas to educate,” he said.
He said that palm oil farmers, when compared to rice farmers who start spreading seeds until harvest, it takes 100 days at the earliest. But palm oil plants once in 10 days and once harvested, there is no farmer who is more prosperous than palm oil if the farmers are right.
“That’s why now if my farmers are like that, ugly old manen, if I know I will get angry at manen like that,” he said.
So he said that if there are poor people in Riau, it is lazy people. There are no poor people if a family of three cannot buy 3 kilograms of rice. Having a family of three, his wife can just take the palm oil leaves and get IDR 100,000 or 8 kilograms of rice. Anyway, in the palm oil area, employment is open.
“Those unemployed mothers who are not ashamed to take palm oil seeds can get two sacks of rice alone to shop for themselves, buy skin care from palm oil seeds alone,” he said.
In addition, he emphasized not to reduce the scales, it’s better to rob if you do that. It sounds simple but it was harsh teaching to him.
Babe is also keen to share inspiration when he was also an orphan first. So if there is an orphan benefit, sometimes Babe cries when he remembers when he was only a child and got helped every 1 Muharram. Hence, he does not forget that under any circumstances there is orphan compensation. Including the opening of this platform, I brought hundreds of orphans to be blessed because I was once an orphan.
“So what educates me to never give up on life is the situation when I was a child, I had to live on my own feet but was guided by my foster father. I went to school from elementary, junior high, and high school on my own, selling newspapers at the station and bus terminal at night,” said Babe, who is originally from Banyuwangi, East Java, and started living in Riau in 1990.
Source: Riau.antaranews.com
