Some facts about a very profitable, booming industry with ever-increasing demand but involved in some shady business.
Hello dear friends of ecotrain, I hope you are very well, if like me, you are aware of the news on environmental issues, surely you have come across more than once with news about the problems caused by the cultivation and processing of oil palm, in my particular case, I have seen firsthand in my community some of these drawbacks, and also some of the benefits it can bring. Today we will explore a bit of both sides of the coin.
What is oil palm and why is it so fashionable?
There are two variants of the oil palm, the ELeais Oleifera or American oil palm, and the Eleais Guineensis which is the African oil palm. Of these two, the second is the most cultivated around the world, however, a cross between the two is the most cultivated in the Americas to obtain a better adaptation to the climate and a better resistance to local pests and diseases.
The oil palm can grow up to 7 meters high, and its leaves can extend up to 3 meters, when planted, it takes between 3 and 5 years to mature depending on the species, after which it begins to bear fruit, reaching the peak of performance between 7 and 18 years, after 18 years, production begins to decline until 25 years where the plant is considered infertile and therefore is eliminated.
The oil palm is very resistant to diseases, does not require many pesticides, and can be planted in relatively poor soils.
The fruit of this grows in large bulbs at the top of the stem, and has a reddish-yellow fleshy oil-rich covering, with a central seed covered with a hard coating, this seed is also rich in oil.
The oil produced from the processing of these fruits is a very valuable commodity, which today is valued at 1531 dollars per ton, and is at a relatively low point, since at the beginning of the year it reached 1800 dollars per ton. A myriad of products are made from palm oil, not only in the food sector, where it is used as edible oil, for the manufacture of lard for bakery use, for chocolate, etc....
But also in the creation of personal care products such as soap or shampoo, in makeup as a base for lipsticks and facial creams, and even in the industrial sector as it can be extracted from products such as glycerin or manufacture Bio Diesel. A compilation of all the uses of palm oil can be found here.
https://www.worldwildlife.org/pages/which-everyday-products-contain-palm-oil
[As you can see, the price of palm oil has experienced a tremendous increase in recent years.]
All in all, demand for palm oil is expected to continue to grow by as much as 50% in the coming years.
The bad news.
The fact that it is a very profitable crop, which can produce up to 20 tons of fruit annually per hectare, from which 4 tons of oil can be extracted, and more than a ton of derived vegetable matter, means that in many regions of Southeast Asia and Central and South America large tracts of land are being deforested to plant oil palm. Destroying the habitat of protected species, taking land from indigenous peoples and endangering food security in the region. This case is especially serious in countries like Borneo, where more than 24,000 square kilometers of forest have been destroyed to plant oil palm.
Although oil palm cultivation does not require many fertilizers or pesticides, these are used to accelerate growth and increase yields, this can damage the environmental balance, and waste from fruit processing can contaminate water sources. In addition, oil palm requires relatively dry soils, so in some places wetlands have been drained and destroyed to grow oil palm.
After deforestation of forests for oil palm cultivation, the land is usually burned to adapt it to the palm, which is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The processing of the fruit also requires large amounts of energy, adding to the problem.
The good news.
Oil palm produces about 40% of the oil consumed in the world, using just over 5% of the world's crop area devoted to oil-producing plants, far exceeding the yield per square hectare of crops such as sunflower, corn or soybeans.
Oil palm cultivation can be sustainable, allowing the use of land indefinitely in time, without the need to enable new land for more crops once a certain number of ever/harvest cycles are over, and in fact there is an organization dedicated to certifying the sustainability of oil palm crops, the RSPO, [Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil], however, as of 2016 only 17.4% of registered palm crops were listed as sustainable.
Oil palm offers the option of reusing soils that were degraded during the cultivation of food crops, economically enabling soils that would otherwise be replaced with deforestation.
And of course there are the economic considerations, being a very profitable and job-creating industry, it offers opportunities where there were none before.
Conclusion.
Oil palm cultivation is very controversial lately. However, if there had been the same environmental awareness 50 or 60 years ago that we have today, the world would have screamed at the enormous destruction of forests, rivers and soils as a result of the green revolution and the massification of agriculture, which was much greater than that which exists as a result of oil palm.
Of course, today we are at a critical point with climate change threatening humanity, and any destruction of forests and pollution of the environment must be condemned, including that of the oil palm industry, however, comparatively it is more environmentally friendly than, for example, sunflower or corn.
We can say, that oil palm is far from being an ideal option for the production of edible oil, which is needed more and more every day, however, compared to the other options it is perhaps the best on a volume of production/ecological impact comparison measure. At least, for the time being.
Recommended Bibliographic Reference
[1]NATURE "
[2]WIKIPEDIA "