User:Vormoza/Inti-Plasma Farming

Inti-Plasma refers to a farming system for oil palm practised in Indonesia. Inti, the Bahasa word for nucleus, is the part of such a plantation that is under concession of the company, while plasma is operated on land owned by the smallholders but planted by the company. Plasma farming is a particular form of contract farming.

Smallholders work on the plasma farm usually organized in farmers' cooperatives and by contract have to sell to the oil palm company for a price set by the government.

The motivation for this kind of organizational and contractual arrangement is mainly that the initial investments to establish an oil palm plantation are considerable. Clearing land, building roads, and planting trees on sizeable areas requires not only elevated economic power but also technological skills. This part, therefore, is in the company's responsibility while the costs are later deducted from the payments made to the farmers.

Smallholders can benefit from the arrangement through technological transfers. Not only in the establishment of the farm does the company play an important role. Also during operations, the company usually provides inputs such as fertilizer to the plasma-farmers. Often smallholders have a non-plasma oil palm farm in addition to the plasma farm where they can apply their newly acquired skills.

The scheme was established in the course of the transmigration program for those resettling. This form of inti-plasma is called PIR TRANS which stands for Perkebunan Inti Rakyat Transmigrasi, i.e. Nucleus Estate Smallholders Project for Transmigrants. The other, more recent form of the system, started in the 1990s and is called KKPA. It stands for Kredit Koperasi Primer Anggota, i.e. Credit for Cooperative Primary Members and is not attached to the transmigration program.

A significant difference in how transmigrants and indigenous populations were treated is in how their own land was considered. Part of the transmigration program was to give resettled families two to four hectares of land for their own cultivation. However, indigenous populations willing to participate in such a scheme, had to give away parts of their land to become both inti and plasma oil palm farms. Such arrangements depend on the individual negotiation between village communities and oil palm companies and most commonly result in deals wherein 80% of the land becomes core plantation (inti) and 20% plasma.

In 2013, smallholders (not only plasma!) were farming around 3.5 million ha of oil palm plantations or 39.5 percent of the plantation areas at that time.