Palm oil is increasingly featured in positive news stories and opinion pieces and even recommended as a much-needed vegetable oil globally not only for food and numerous other consumer products but also for biofuel. This positive international perception should be welcomed by president-elect Prabowo Subianto who has a big palm oil agenda.
Last month the United States government and farm producers urged the postponement of the enforcement of the European Union Deforestation-free Regulation (EUDR), which is scheduled for implementation on Dec. 31. If the EUDR comes into force as planned, palm oil exports to the EU market will encounter severe restrictions.
A research-based report by the Oil Crops Taskforce of the Switzerland-based International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in May shattered the myth that oil crops such as oil palm are inherently bad. Instead “it is the farm practices that count. It is how the crops are grown, processed and traded. It’s the practices, not the plants, that make the difference”.
A study conducted by the University of Maryland’s Department of Geographical Sciences on deforestation trends in Indonesia between 1991 and 2020 concluded, among other things, that Indonesia contained vast areas of land (about 8 million hectares) deforested before 2020 which were underutilized.
“Indonesia is one of the few tropical forest countries that has been able to successfully slow deforestation. And with so much idle land currently available, Indonesia could stop clearing forests altogether while still increasing palm oil production,’’ Phys.org news quoted part of the study’s findings in a report early this month.
But the report also conveys a stern warning to the Indonesian government to maintain high sustainability standards in harnessing the land resources.
This report is really quite encouraging for the new government, which plans to double Indonesian palm oil production to over 100 million tons, to meet the steadily increasing national and global demand for food and numerous other consumer goods and biofuel.
And yet an even more positive perception is contained in a book titled Not The End Of The World written by Scottish scientist Hannah Ritchie. The main theme of the book challenges the perennial campaign by most green NGOs in Europe and asserts that the campaign against palm oil is misguided and potentially harmful to both the environment and economic development. Her book presents an evidence-rich counterpoint to the view that everything is going in the wrong direction, and offers possible approaches to the burning challenges of our time.
Ritchie, the lead researcher at Our World in Data based at Oxford University, presents a compelling case for palm oil, by using data to understand global development and environmental challenges and offers a strong perspective on palm oil.
Ritchie told AFP news agency in a recent interview that palm oil is “an insanely productive plant” that yields far more oil per ha than alternative crops like soybean or coconut. This high productivity is crucial when considering the global demand for vegetable oils. She asserted “If we were to boycott palm oil and replace it with one of these alternatives, we would need far more farmland.”
Many studies also have concluded that palm oil is indeed an extremely productive crop, with yields of 2.8 tons of oil per ha compared with, say, 0.34 tons for olives, 0.26 tons for coconuts and 0.7 tons for sunflowers. Hence if companies turned to alternatives because of palm oil’s bad reputation, that could actually lead to far more deforestation.
According to the US Department of Agriculture and Statista, Indonesia, the world’s largest producer, accounts for about 60 percent of the global palm oil output with Malaysia contributing 24 percent, Thailand 4 percent, Colombia 2 percent and Nigeria, Guatemala, Papua New Guinea, Honduras and Brazil each less than 1 percent.
The new insights aired in Ritchie’s book are particularly important given the growing global population and the increasing demand for food and consumer products, and also important, biofuel. By producing more oil on less land, palm oil could actually help preserve forests and natural habitats that might otherwise be cleared for less efficient crops.
The Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI) has often asserted in its international marketing campaign for palm oil that there are several reasons as to why palm oil has been favoured as a vegetable oil.
First of all, this commodity, which now accounts for over 40 percent of the global demand for vegetable oil, has the lowest production costs among oil crops but it has the highest yield among them all. Then the composition of palm oil makes it a very versatile commodity used for food and many other consumer goods. Yet more importantly, amid the current global campaign against climate change, is that palm oil also has a big potential to become a major source of biofuel.
Ritchie’s book conveys a strong message to EU green campaigners that solid and reliable data are more important than public perception for making policy decisions. The message serves as a reminder that environmental issues are often more complex than they appear at first glance. By challenging our assumptions and looking closely at the data, we may find that some of our well-intentioned efforts are misplaced or even counterproductive.
The green NGOs, which have been campaigning for labelling products “not containing palm oil” on consumer goods, will contribute more to a green environment if they help major palm-oil-producing countries such as Indonesia develop sustainable oil palm plantations. Indonesia has been implementing its Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) scheme but the program needs financial and technical assistance because oil palm estates involve more than 6 million smallholders.
Favouring other oil crops such as soybean, olive oil, rapeseed and sunflower would require the use of more farmland at the expense of the environment because these crops are far less productive than oil palm. Edi Suhardi, Sustainability Analyst and Executive Member of the Indonesian Palm Oil Association (GAPKI)
