MAY 16 ― There have been growing concerns over the so-called “palm oil problem.”
As one of the biggest agricultural commodities in South-east Asia, in particular for Indonesia and Malaysia, the EU’s new anti-deforestation law is being viewed very negatively by the Asean palm oil industry. Why? Because this law requires imported palm oil to be certified as having been produced on land that has not been deforested. This effectively labels the majority of Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil unsuitable for importation into the EU.
But such laws and actions create serious problems for sustainability. Put simply, the EU is the world’s biggest market for sustainable palm oil, which provides a robust defence against deforestation and labour rights abuses, and with over 90 per cent of the palm oil imported into Europe being Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO), there is no damage or impact to primary forest, natural habitats, or local communities and cultures.
China and India are large and growing markets for palm oil. Yet they remain price-sensitive and dominated by consumers with low levels of awareness about sustainability. Attitudes are changing but China and India are less concerned about how it’s made or where it comes from. The cheaper the better.
However, if produced unsustainably, palm oil can have an awful impact ― on the environment, on wildlife and on human rights.
If you kill the market for sustainable palm oil, and almost rejoice in its demise, then you are simply encouraging unsustainable farming practices.
More forests will be cleared or damaged to grow oil palm, which impacts both wildlife and local communities. And the workers and farmers producing palm oil could suffer worsening working conditions and low pay.
Simply switching to alternative vegetable oils from palm oil won’t eliminate these issues. Sunflower, rapeseed and soy have much lower yields per hectare than oil palm, so, in fact, more land would be needed to produce an equivalent amount of oil.
Yes, unsustainable palm oil is a problem; but palm oil per se is not. Palm oil produced sustainably causes no damage to primary forest, natural habitats, or local communities and cultures. Even the world-renowned WWF believes that palm oil can contribute to sustainability if it’s managed properly.
In fact, sustainable palm oil is actually the lesser of many evils. University of Bath scientists recently showed in Nature Sustainability that banning palm oil could drive greater rates of deforestation, by switching demand to less efficient edible oils that use more land, water and fertiliser. Meanwhile, world deforestation due to palm oil has actually fallen to a four-year low, according to satellite analysis published by Chain Reaction Research (CRR).
We know the devastating impact of deforestation on biodiversity and extinction risk for animals such as the orangutan. If we switched from palm oil to alternative vegetable oils, this impact could worsen.
The Orangutan Land Trust acknowledges that palm oil is “here to stay” and recommends that the switch is not from palm oil to another type of oil, but from palm oil to sustainable palm oil. This is because, while the demand for all edible oil crops is increasing, palm oil continues to perform the best in terms of yield and versatility.
Global palm oil production in 2020 was about 75.9 million metric tonnes, which contributes between 405.3 to 555.6 million tonnes CO2e in 2020, whereas annual global emissions are about 50 billion tonnes CO2e. So, palm oil’s contribution to global emissions is between 1.11 - 0.81 per cent. In fact, cattle ranching releases far more CO2 emissions globally and causes far worse deforestation.
Moreover, palm oil yield per hectare is almost 6-10 times that of other oilseeds, such as rapeseed, soybean, olive, or sunflower. Putting that into context, 36 million hectares of additional land for palm oil is required to keep pace with growing food demand, whereas soybean, the second most popular oil crop, would need 204 million more hectares.
Chester Zoo in the UK acknowledges that palm oil itself is not necessarily bad; in fact, it supplies 35 per cent of the world’s vegetable oil from just 10 per cent of the global land dedicated to oil crops. There is simply no other oil that can boast such efficiency credentials.
We do have a problem, but palm oil isn’t it. The problem is how to meet global food demand while also safeguarding the future of the planet, and the communities that rely on vegetable oil agriculture. Simply ceasing production of palm oil is not the answer.
* Jo Furnival is a freelance writer who writes about health and environmental policy.
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
