Community

Building Communities Through Social Forestry

We actively foster community empowerment through long-term partnerships, infrastructure development, and social forestry programs, creating sustainable livelihoods and enhancing the quality of life for local communities.

Our Community

Smallholder Support

Smallholder support is a key focus for us, aimed at empowering small-scale farmers and local communities within our operating regions.
We actively assist smallholders through traceability initiatives that ensure sustainable sourcing and compliance with certification standards.

We purchase Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) from external/third-party producers including smallholders, local farmers, and plasma schemes, totaling about 1 million mt in 2024 to process through our mills. This supports smallholder livelihoods by providing market access.

We help smallholders with traceability by actively managing a comprehensive database to identify precise plantation locations for smallholders and integrating sustainability policies into supplier practices. This supports compliance with evolving regulations and sustainability standards.

We assist smallholders and farmers through partnership programmes which provide financial support for agricultural inputs such as planting materials and equipment along with training and education on good plantation practices. This aims to improve smallholder productivity and output.

We support the Kas Desa smallholder village development programme, managing 22 smallholder village schemes since inception. This includes financing, development, and management to improve livelihoods. Some smallholders have successfully exited the programme to self-manage.

Corporate guarantees over $0.55 million have been provided to local banks to support loans raised by plasma cooperatives, aiding in smallholder plantation development.

We have also developed local infrastructure such as roads and bridges benefiting smallholder communities and providing seed capital and initial aid like fruit seedlings and fish fry for community sustainable programmes.

Education for employees' children is provided free, including provision of schools and scholarships, benefiting smallholder families connected to the Group.

Our efforts to upgrade electricity supply to homes in plantation areas help improve living standards for smallholder families.