Socio technical analysis of palm oil plantation in North Sumatera Indonesia: Making sustainable supply

Abstract

This paper has an aim to present a socio-technical analysis of palm oil plantation in North Sumatera Indonesia. This analysis is beneficial to support stakeholders in the Indonesian palm oil industry in designing strategic plans for making sustainable supply of palm oil. North Sumatera province has large areas of palm oil plantation and acts as one of important crude palm oil producer for Indonesia. Palm oil industry contributes to the economic and to the life of citizen in this province. To sustain supplies from palm oil plantations, social and technical aspects are necessary to maintain. Social aspects such as the behaviour of palm oil smallholders in cultivating their plantations and technical aspects such as availability of technology to support palm oil cultivation influence the supplies from plantations. Socio-Technical Framework and SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat) were used to analyze the existing condition of palm oil plantation in North Sumatera Indonesia. To get supporting information, interviews with farmers, suppliers, palm oil researchers were conducted. The result indicates that there are several weaknesses and threats reducing the chance to sustain the supplies of palm oil.