TY - JOUR

T1 - Will teaching sustainability standards to oil palm smallholders in Indonesia pay off?

AU - Ernah,

AU - Parvathi, Priyanka

AU - Waibel, Hermann

N1 - Funding information: The authors thank the editor for his guidance and the anonymous reviewer for helpful comments. We also thank the Economy and Environment Program for Southeast Asia (EEPSEA) for partial financial support.

PY - 2020/3/28

Y1 - 2020/3/28

N2 - This study presents an ex-ante cost-benefit analysis of introducing sustainability standards to smallholder oil palm farmers in the province of Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Sustainability standards are defined as a set of oil palm management practices derived from the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) scheme. Economic and environmental benefits of ISPO are derived from a panel data set from some 185 oil palm smallholders collected in 2010, 2012 and 2013. We explore two basic strategies for the introduction of ISPO namely: (1) a conventional extension campaign and (2) a farmer field school approach. Our calculations show that the farmer field school approach results in a higher economic rate of return compared to conventional agricultural extension campaigns. A major conclusion from this analysis is that the Government of Indonesia should invest if ISPO standards are to be adopted on a large scale by smallholder farmers.

AB - This study presents an ex-ante cost-benefit analysis of introducing sustainability standards to smallholder oil palm farmers in the province of Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia. Sustainability standards are defined as a set of oil palm management practices derived from the Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) scheme. Economic and environmental benefits of ISPO are derived from a panel data set from some 185 oil palm smallholders collected in 2010, 2012 and 2013. We explore two basic strategies for the introduction of ISPO namely: (1) a conventional extension campaign and (2) a farmer field school approach. Our calculations show that the farmer field school approach results in a higher economic rate of return compared to conventional agricultural extension campaigns. A major conclusion from this analysis is that the Government of Indonesia should invest if ISPO standards are to be adopted on a large scale by smallholder farmers.

KW - cost-benefit analysis

KW - farmer field schools

KW - Indonesia

KW - ISPO

KW - Oil palm

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85082450059&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1080/14735903.2020.1744899

DO - 10.1080/14735903.2020.1744899

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85082450059

VL - 18

SP - 196

EP - 211

JO - International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability

JF - International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability

SN - 1473-5903

IS - 2

ER -