FACS organized a workshop session in Jakarta, in collaboration with PERBANAS (the Indonesian banks association) and Partnership for Forests. Attendees were local banks, international impact investors and plantation companies – this wide and diverse crowd spurred an interesting discussion on the financing structures available to un-lock oil palm replanting credit for smallholders.

Edoardo Cavallo, associate at FACS, presented to industry leaders at the 10th Asia Sustainable Oil Palm Summit in Bali. His presentation focused on the existing innovative financing models for oil palm smallholders and what it takes to scale them up. Three main partnership models were presented:

This week the FACS team went out in the field. We visited the newly established mill by PT Prosympac in the Jambi region where we were shown the latest development in oil palm sustainable practices and established an interesting dialogue with the company to better understand the dynamics of the mill-farmer relationship.