About a quarter of the plantation sector's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is contributed by the plantation agriculture sub-sector. However, the plantation sub-sector still faced structural problems such as the relatively low productivity of smallholder plantations compared to that of large plantations run by the government or private sector. Another problem is the quite large disparity of land and labor productivity between regions.

Closing the productivity gap is key to enhancing productivity in all these three commodities. In this paper, the writer describes strategies to close the productivity gap between regions and between smallholders and large plantations.