BPDP Says Palm Replanting Reaches 438,217 Hectares as GAPKI Urges Faster Progress

Jakarta — The Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDP) says Indonesia's smallholder oil-palm replanting programme covered 438,217 hectares and 196,846 growers from 2016 through 30 September 2026. According to figures reported by ANTARA on 2 November, cumulative assistance reached IDR 12.48 trillion. BPDP and the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) are pressing for faster replanting as the country's B50 biodiesel blend puts renewed attention on the supply of palm-oil feedstock.

National figures and the North Sumatra programme

BPDP upstream funding director Normansyah Hidayat Syahruddin described coordination with national and regional governments, cooperatives and companies as part of the programme, ANTARA reported. Speaking in connection with a palm-oil stakeholders' forum held in Medan on 29–30 October, he presented replanting as a way to improve smallholder productivity and sustainability. The recorded area should not be mistaken for an immediate increase in harvests or crude palm oil (CPO) output.

BPDP's North Sumatra figures cover 19,902.13 hectares and 9,048 growers from 2022 through the third quarter of 2026, with IDR 553.76 billion disbursed. This regional time span differs from that of the nationwide cumulative figure. Neither figure measures additional biodiesel already produced.

In a report published in October, InfoSAWIT quoted GAPKI replanting official Suryanto Bun as estimating that around 428,000 hectares had been replanted over roughly a decade. That approximation differs from BPDP's more precise figure with an explicit 30 September cut-off reported by ANTARA. The two statements should not be silently treated as identical measurements.

Land records remain a constraint

According to InfoSAWIT, some growers still struggle to assemble the documentation needed to join the programme, particularly where land status is unclear or plots intersect forest areas. Suryanto said cooperatives and partnerships could help with paperwork. ANTARA also quoted a North Sumatra government representative calling for simpler procedures, farmer assistance, access to financing and improved planting material.

GAPKI chairman Eddy Martono warned at the forum that an El Niño-related production decline next year could reduce exports to 27 million tonnes, against the 32 million tonnes he cited for this year. This is an association forecast, not a realised decline or a confirmed weather outcome. The relevance to B50 is the need for productive feedstock supply across competing uses; the replanting tally itself does not establish additional FAME supply.

Funding replanting alongside biodiesel

A March BPDP press release describes palm-oil export levies as supporting both smallholder replanting and the biodiesel mandate. It states that assistance for eligible independent smallholders amounts to IDR 60 million per hectare per person. That current programme rate cannot be inferred by dividing years of cumulative disbursements by years of cumulative hectares, because earlier conditions differed.

BPDP's programme page explains that renewing old or underperforming palms with improved seedlings can increase productivity without clearing new land. The page still displays an older IDR 30 million-per-hectare rate; the later March 2026 release is the relevant source for the newer figure. Replanting data provide a useful upstream indicator alongside the biodiesel mandate tracker, but eventual output needs to be checked against post-replanting productivity and harvest data rather than the registered area alone.