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Environmental Performance of Selected Oil Palm Agro-industrial Estate in West Sumatera and Banten Provinces, Indonesia
Dissertation Abstract:
The environmental performance indicators for resource use, environmental emissions, and environmental interactions with the ecosystems were used to evaluate the environmental performance of the processing center and plantations of Nucleus Estate and Smallholder (NES) Ophir and South Banten oil palm agro-industrial estates in the Republic of Indonesia.
The crude palm oil (CPO) and palm kernel (PK) content of the fresh fruit bunches (FFBs) and free fatty acid (FFA) content of CPO were material use environmental performance indicators, which reflect the quality of the produced nuts from the plantations and processing efficiency of the processing center. The processing center of the NES Ophir oil palm agro-industrial estate had higher environmental performance than that of the NES South Banten agro-industrial estate. In 1985-2000, the former had a mean annual production of 19.4 tons FFBs/ha/yr with 24 percent CPO and 4.04 percent PK. CPO had 3.44 percent FFA. However, the NES South Banten produced 5.6 tons FFBs/h/yr with 14.64 percent CPO and 2.50 percent PK. CPO had 4.92 percent FFA.
In 1996-2000, NES Ophir had high water (1.06 m3/ton FFBs), fuel (1.18 li diesel fuel/ton FFBs), and lubricant (0.02 li/ton FFBs) use efficiency than NES South Banten.
The operational management performance of the nucleus estate and smallholders’ plantations of NES Ophir was higher than NES South Banten. The mean production of the sample farms in NES South Banten was 7.9 tons FFBs/ha, which was about one half of NES Ophir. The overall rating of the environmental performance of NES Ophir was higher than that of NES South Banten.
The use of by-products from the processing center in the plantation needs to be improved. The use of empty bunches as mulch instead of being incinerated should be promoted both in the plantations of the nucleus estate and smallholders.
Other potential use of by-products of the processing plant in the plantation should be studied to improve nut production and quality. The environmental performance indicators employed in this study can be used in the environmental audit of oil palm agro-industrial estates.