Palm oil is one of the sources of vegetable which is currently the main and superior agricultural commodity in Indonesia. Palm Oil has a strategic role in economic development in Indonesia; namely as the main raw material for cooking oil, the mainstay of export agricultural commodities as well as creating job opportunities as well as improving people’s welfare.

Among these quite strategic roles, there is the problem of scarcity & spike in cooking oil prices that will occur at the end of 2021 and will continue until the end of March 2022, even though the government has issued several policies to overcome these problems.

There are 3 policies issued by the government, firstly subsidizing packaged cooking oil with palm oil plantation funds managed by the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency (BPDPKS); The two regulations of the Minister of Trade (Permendag) No. 1 of 2022 concerning the supply of simple packaged cooking oil for the needs of the community in the context of financing by the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Management Agency which was later changed to Permendag No. 3 of 2022 & Minister of Trade Regulation No. 6 of 2022 concerning the Determination of the Highest Retail Price (HTE) for Cooking Oil, the three Jokowis issued a policy to prohibit the export of Palm Oil (Crode Palm Iol/Cpo) and Cooking Oil.

However, this policy has not been able to answer the problem of the scarcity of cooking oil that occurs. In fact, there are still queues that occur everywhere to get cooking oil. other causes Crode Palm Oil (CPO) entrepreneurs play the Domestic Market Obligation (DMO) rules. Entrepreneurs export more CPO because prices abroad are higher, this makes domestic supply not as expected.

There are other factors that cause oil scarcity, namely the increase in the price of CPO (Crude Palm Oil) vegetable oil in the world market and the government is also considered less in favor of the food industry in terms of palm oil which makes the trend of palm oil consumption shift to the biodiesel industry. The government plans a B30 program that requires mixing 30% diesel with 70% diesel, as well as distribution and logistics which can result in only a few cooking oil producers in some areas.

As a result, the price of vegetable oil on the world market increases so that entrepreneurs and farmers prefer to export their products which look profitable. However, if this is sustainable, the domestic supply of oil will decrease, so that the ban on palm oil exports will cause the price of palm oil to fall. Oil palm farmers are nervous about the situation where the domestic price of palm oil does not increase while the fertilizer they use has actually increased, oil palm farmers hope that fertilizer prices will return to normal so that these oil palm farmers do not experience losses.

To sustain oil production from scarcity we need to improve care in oil palm cultivation. Boiler ash can be used as a substitute for inorganic fertilizers for oil palm. Boiler ash contains macro and micro nutrients as well as pH, CEC and organic C which can support the vegetative and generative growth of oil palm. This fertilization can be given every 6 months with a usage rate of about 6 kg/plant by sowing it on the disc area.
As a cadet of the Faculty of Military Logistics, the Dryland Agricultural Cultivation Study Program of the Defense University of the Republic of Indonesia has an important role in dealing with the problem of palm oil scarcity, where we as a young generation must have the copyright to create substitute materials for making palm oil such as cultivating corn which is can be used as an alternative material to replace palm oil which contains high linoleic acid which is important for metabolic function and has relatively higher oxidation stability and high nutritional quality so that it can be used as an alternative to cooking oil.