Derom Bangun: The ‘roving’ palm oil ambassador

Derom Bangun: The ‘roving’ palm oil ambassador

Johannes Simbolon, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Tue, 10/05/2010 9:35 AM

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Braving the rain and traffic jam, dozens of top executives from the palm industry and governmental officials rushed to the Balai Kartini convention center last Monday evening to attend a party held by one of the most well known figures in Indonesian palm oil industry, Derom Bangun.

Courtesy Derom Bangun

The event was held to mark the launch of Derom Bangun: Memoar “Duta Besar” Sawit Indonesia (Derom Bangun: Memoirs of an Indonesian “Ambassador” of Oil Palm), a book written by Derom and historian-cum-journalist Bonnie Triyana, published by Kompas Book Publishing.

Derom’s face was glowing with pride as he shook hands with each of the guests at the lobby of the Rafflesia ballroom. Former vice president Jusuf Kalla, deputy trade minister Mahendra Siregar, deputy agriculture minister Bayu Krisnamurthi, former agriculture minister Bungaran Saragih, head of the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) Anwar Nasution as well businessmen such as Franky Wijaya of the Sinar Mas group, Indonesia’s largest palm oil producer, all came to the party to show their appreciation for Derom’s contribution to the development of the country’s palm oil industry.

Inside the ballroom, veteran singer Bob Tutupoly sang Indonesian and English oldies while other singers and dancers performed folk songs and dances from Derom’s ethnic group, the Karo — a Batak sub-ethnic group living in the Karo highland, North Sumatra.

“I’ve never seen a man so dedicated to the palm oil industry. He is an encyclopedia of oil palm,” Kalla said in his speech.

Most people close to Derom could not agree more with Kalla’s statement. Derom is one of few people who has closely witnessed Indonesia become the world’s largest palm oil producer.

After graduating from the Bandung Institute of Technology, he worked on a palm oil plantation in the 1960s, when palm oil was only a small industry in Indonesia with an annual CPO output of less than 200,000 tons, compared with 21.6 million tons in 2009. As the industry grew, so did the role his role in the industry. Derom then established his own oil palm plantation, sat on the executive board of national and international palm oil associations, representating Indonesia in various international discussions and forums on the palm oil sector.

He never left the industry. Not only did he witness the spectacular growth of the country’s palm oil industry, but he also became one of its well-respected thinkers, and one of the important actors that help push the growth of the industry and defend it against attacks from various parties.

“Oil palm is his life,” Kalla said, adding his close relationship with Derom started in 1999 when he was minister of industry and trade under President Abdurrahman Wahid. He came to Medan, North Sumatra’s provincial capital, after hearing the Dutch government was boycotting palm oil from Indonesia to protest against a shipment of palm oil that had been mixed with diesel oil from Medan’s Belawan Port.

Investigations concluded that irresponsible companies had mixed palm oil with diesel oil to make more money. Kalla then demanded all the port’s facilities, including its test laboratory, be improved. He also sent a delegation — comprising governmental officials and palm oil executives — to the Netherlands to deliver an explanation and highlight the measures Indonesia would take to prevent such problem from reoccurring.

Having heard of Derom’s negotiating skills, Kalla appointed the former, who at the time was the chairman of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (Gapki), to lead the delegation with members including the ministry’s director general.

“I felt appreciated but was also shocked. How could a businessman lead a delegation comprising a top governmental official?” Derom recalled.

The tireless negotiator eventually completed the assignment, and The Netherlands soon lifted the boycott. From then onwards, Kalla and his predecessors always took Derom along on their overseas trips to promote the Indonesian palm industry. He was then part of a delegation sent to Russia to secure Russian Sukhoi aircrafts for Indonesia in exchange for agricultural commodities, including palm oil.

Derom always stood up to attacks from organizations critical of Indonesian palm industry, such as Greenpeace. In 2007, for instance, he debated the ethics of converting palm oil into biofuel opposite Greenpeace and Biofuel Watch, in front of a large audience in Oxford, the UK. The audience voted in his favor after the debate. In fact, he grew accustomed to debating in international forums while studying for a master’s degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“He helped the government find sustainable ways to develop the Indonesian palm oil [industry], as an Indonesian delegate in various international meetings in London, Brussels and Washington. In view of his diplomatic prowess in defending the interest of the national palm industry in various international forums, I call him ‘the roving ambassador of Indonesian oil palm’,” Achmad Mangga Barani, newly retired director general of plantation at the agriculture ministry, testified in the memoir.

At the age of 70, Derom is offering us a gift: A 547-page memoir that should be a must-read for anyone who wants to know about Indonesia’s palm oil history.