Goodhope Asia Holdings Ltd, through PT Batu Mas Sejahtera recently concluded Farmer Field School training for 101 smallholders in the Ketapang region of West Kalimantan, Indonesia. Conducted over 3 months from September to December 2023 by our partner, Widya Erti Indonesia, the program was well received and appreciated. Goodhope is the first company to run such a program for farmers from the villages of Semandang Kanan, Randau, Istana, and Sandai.
Founded in 2019 by Goodhope, the Farmer Field School is a capacity-building program designed based on smallholder needs analysis. It has benefited 269 independent smallholders from Central and East Kalimantan in its inaugural program The program resumed in 2022 after the pandemic when 97 farmers from Central Kalimantan completed the program. To date, 467 smallholders have been supported by Goodhope’s Farmer Field School.
Representing Goodhope at the graduation ceremony, Vinodharan Nair, General Manager of PT Batu Mas Sejahtera, expressed that the company focused on capacity building to ensure that farmers in the region are equipped with agricultural knowledge that goes beyond just knowing how to plant oil palm.
“Our Farmer Field School program gives farmers basic but impactful hands-on knowledge on soil health, nursery management, plantation upkeep, organic fertilizers, techniques on how to identify and fight infections, pest management as well as proper harvesting methods,” he said.
Also present at the graduation ceremony were members of Goodhope’s Responsible Sourcing and Traceability team and Widya Erti Indonesia.
The program educated smallholders on the importance of No Deforestation, No Peat and No Exploitation (NDPE), financial literacy, RSPO guidelines, and gender equality. There were several women smallholders in the program, who seized the opportunity to learn and were quick to implement techniques that they learned in their respective plantations.
Overall, the program fulfilled its purpose of educating smallholders in the vicinity of our plantations. Many of them expressed interest in attending future development programs to support their livelihood.