Palm Oil Controversy

English

During the South East Asia portion of my recent motorbike adventure I couldn’t help noticing the sprawling monoculture palm oil plantations dominating huge amounts of land. Immense areas of Malaysia, Indonesia and Borneo are currently all the same shade of green, the colour of one plant only, the colour of Elaies Guinensis, a particular palm tree variety, native to Africa, that produces the fruit from which palm oil is extracted.

Palm oil is widely used today, most specifically in the food and cosmetics industries. There is palm oil in our morning croissants, some in the mayonnaise we might enjoy with our fries, a little in lipstick and a more in our favourite shampoo.

Palm oil fruit grows in clusters and is similar in appearance to a small reddish-yellow plum. The pulp and kernel of the fruit go through a refining process that includes milling, fractionation and degumming. The end products of the refining system are liquid and solid forms of palm oil both ready to be sold on international markets globally and the asian one most of all.

High profits and growing demand have fuelled an explosive growth in production of palm oil on the Malaysian peninsula and areas close by. This however has not occurred without controversy and sometimes violent debate with regards to the effects of what some have described as poorly regimented plantation expansion.

Some of the effects of the rapid growth in production include savage deforestation with the destruction of wildlife habits and ecosystems (orangutangs, elephants, cats killed or trafficked), land erosion and the contamination of ground water with pesticides and chemicals. There has also been the destruction of entire communities that in the past thrived on small scale farming and the products available from the forests now all cleared for new plantations.

It is estimated that in Indonesia alone, no less than 6 million hectares of forest have been destroyed in recent decades to make room for palm oil production. This is equivalent of roughly 1.4 times the area of the Po Valley area of Northern Italy (huge!) with the ruination continuing to this day by means of bush fires and bulldozers used to clear subsequent scorched land.
Indonesia has one of the biggest biodiversity’s of the world consisting of plants, insects, vertebrates and invertebrates. Some animal and plant species we know very little about and there are certainly varieties we ignore the existence of totally ...and might never get to know.

Processing plant in the middle of a plantation in Sumatra

Of course there are two sides to the story. Palm oil farming is lucrative and it has certainly disentangled many a small land owner from a condition of poverty. Today a small scale palm oil farmer can live a life of relative ease, afford to send children to school, build a house according to modern criteria and pay medical bills. Undenaiably there's some degree of prosperity gained.

However, it's the bigger plantation companies that control the palm oil Industry. Corporations such as Wilmar International based in Singapore, Sime Derby in Malaysia and others like Golden Agri Resources have a huge part of the market in their hands. They sell their oil products to well known multinational coorporations world wide, such as Ferrero (Nutella), Colgate (Plamolive), L’Oreal and Kellogg’s just to mention a few.

It’s not entirely clear if there are any real health hazards that come with the consumption of palm oil. For sure palm oil is made up mostly of vegetable fat and at least 50% of which is of the undesirable saturated kind. However, Palm oil also contains high levels of antioxidants and vitamin E which are both part of a healthy diet.

So what can be done to avoid being part of the forest destruction process in South East Asia? Contrary to what one would think, trying to boycott palm oil products is not a viable idea. In the long term it would mean finding an alternative to palm oil to satisfy industry demands. Such an alternative might fall on soya bean oil which of course comes with environmental issues of it’s own.

What's needed is sustainable, responsible and ethical palm oil production.

In 2001 representatives of companies involved in the palm oil industry formed the RSPO: the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil. It was intended as a board for the creation of guide lines and standards for ethical and sustainable production of palm oil. The Round Table was promoted by companies such as Unilever, Nestlè and others. However, regardless of the panel’s efforts and recommendations, deforestation has continued well beyond 2001, perhaps even at a faster pace than before with few companies that agreed to the RSPO guide lines doing much to honer the spirit of the proposals.

From French fries to chocolate bars, from nutella to washing detergents, palm oil is everywhere. You cannot escape it. It’s produced, consumed and it works well for it's intended purposes.

To make sure that palm oil is produced sustainably perhaps we, the consumers, can take a little action and behave more conscientiously. The internet these days allows us to easily check companies and their policies with regards to palm oil. Perhaps we can choose to buy products from those corporations and organisations that subscribe and enforce sustainable production methods.
It’s not difficult to find out which brands put an effort into ethical and sustainable palm oil policies. Those that do tend to advertise it openly.
Go ahead, check out your favourite brand of cookies! Use any search engine available and type “Company/brand xyz palm oil” You'll find some surprises out there for sure.

An orangutang handshake!