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posted by martyb on Thursday May 21 2020, @10:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the greasing-the-palms? dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Palm oil is often associated with tropical deforestation above all else. However, this is only one side of the story, as agricultural scientists from the University of Göttingen and the IPB University Bogor (Indonesia) show in a new study.

[...] For the study, the researchers evaluated results from over 30 years of research on the environmental, economic and social consequences of oil palm cultivation in Africa, Asia and Latin America. They combined the results from the international literature with their own data from Indonesia, which they have been collecting since 2012 as part of an interdisciplinary German-Indonesian Collaborative Research Centre (CRC 990). Indonesia is the largest palm oil producer and exporter in the world. A large proportion of the palm oil produced in Indonesia is exported to Europe and the U.S., where it is used by the food, fuel and cosmetics industries.

The research data show that the expansion of oil palm in some regions of the world—especially Indonesia and Malaysia—contributes significantly to tropical deforestation and the loss of biodiversity. Clearing forestland also leads to substantial carbon emissions and other environmental problems. "However, banning palm oil production and trade would not be a sustainable solution," says Professor Matin Qaim, agricultural economist at the University of Göttingen and first author of the study. "The reason is that oil palm produces three times more oil per hectare than soybean, rapeseed, or sunflower. This means that if palm oil was replaced with alternative vegetable oils, much more land would be needed for cultivation, with additional loss of forests and other natural habitats."

Banning palm oil would also have negative economic and social consequences in the producing countries. "It is often assumed that oil palm is only grown on large industrial plantations," says Qaim. "In reality, however, around half of the world's palm oil is produced by smallholder farmers. Our data show that oil palm cultivation increases profits and incomes in the small farm sector, in addition to raising wages and creating additional employment for rural laborers. Although there are incidences of conflicts over land, overall the oil palm boom has significantly reduced rural poverty in Indonesia and other producing countries."

Journal Reference:
Matin Qaim, et al. Environmental, Economic, and Social Consequences of the Oil Palm Boom [open], (DOI: 10.1146/annurev-resource-110119-024922)

Previously:
(2018-12-18) Indonesia: A Country That Became "Crazy Rich"
(2018-12-01) Palm Oil was Supposed to Help Save the Planet. Instead it Unleashed a Catastrophe.
(2017-03-15) A Makeover for the World's Most Hated Crop


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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @07:18PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday May 22 2020, @07:18PM (#997951) Journal

    The problem, really, is capitalism. We've outgrown it as a tool for developing the world, and we've instead taken it to a point where a few are maximizing their return.

    Do you have evidence for that position? Because I have counter evidence [soylentnews.org].

    And there's not much point to saying we've grown out of a tool, when we don't have a replacement to grow into!

    The world needs fresh ideas other than communism, capitalism, and ... well, I'm unsure about Europe's socialism. It seems like most everyone in the developed world is rejecting absolute socialism.

    Which is at first glance seems quite peculiar given that one can try fresh ideas on small scale. Surely, the better system is already out there in the wild.

    But then consider all the resistance to capitalist innovations like high frequency trade, globalism, Deming's management theory, and the gig economy. Is the problem that we've outgrown capitalism or that we try to prevent capitalism from growing with us? Needless to say, I don't think capitalism is getting a fair shake here.

    For the people who still think capitalism is a dead end, I can point to an alternative [soylentnews.org] from nature. What I wrote [soylentnews.org] on this:

    This is one of the puzzles of evolution. These ants and their fungal crops have had 60 million years to evolve. Yet they are remarkably inefficient in the processing of nutrients (a property which is shared with a lot of other life, including human digestive systems). Is there perhaps a survival disadvantage to processing nutrients too efficiently? Or perhaps plants have evolved to yield their nutrients as little as possible to this sort of fungal digestion even after death?

    Perhaps, we could think of a economic ecology instead? Just keep in mind that it needs to be able to compete with capitalism, not merely hope that capitalism is eliminated by fiat first.

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