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SCMP’s Asia desk

President Prabowo Subianto has called for tighter security to protect Indonesia’s palm oil plantations, saying the commodity is being targeted by foreign countries.
“They really need our palm oil, as it turns out, palm oil is a strategic material,” said Prabowo, who was speaking on Monday at a meeting for national development planning in Jakarta.
“Many countries are afraid of not getting palm oil,” he added, according to a report by the Tempo news website.
Prabowo asked the Indonesian military and police to help regional authorities in protecting palm oil plantations.
The president’s call comes as Indonesia and other commodity exporters are preparing to meet the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which is set to take effect on December 30, 2025, after the bloc’s authorities recently agreed to a one-year delay in its implementation.
The EUDR requires that commodities such as palm oil, timber, soybeans, coffee and cattle sold in EU markets must not come from land deforested or degraded after December 31, 2020.


Prabowo said that European countries were planning to curb palm oil imports from Indonesia but such a move would be detrimental to their industries.
“This will bring chaos to their cocoa, detergent, and cosmetics industries. Indonesia will be fine,” he said.
Despite the West’s concerns about deforestation in Indonesia, Prabowo called for an expansion of palm oil plantations in the country. “Don’t be afraid of deforestation,” he said.
In October, Airlangga Hartarto, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for economic affairs, expressed concerns about the EU’s demand for detailed geolocation data on agricultural land to assess deforestation in the country, saying foreign access to such data could pose security risks.

The cultivation of palm oil has led to extensive deforestation over the years in Indonesia, which accounts for more than half of global output.
More than 74 million hectares (182.9 million acres) of rainforest in Indonesia have been lost since 1950 to make way for palm oil, paper, rubber and other commodities, according to the Global Forest Watch monitoring project. Data recorded by TheTreeMap shows 30,000 hectares of forest in the country were converted to palm oil plantations last year.


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Foreign countries are eyeing Indonesian palm oil as the ‘strategic material’ is crucial to their industries, President Prabowo Subianto says


Foreign countries are eyeing Indonesian palm oil as the ‘strategic material’ is crucial to their industries, President Prabowo Subianto says.
