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
Related Stories
Palm oil is a commodity that generally evokes images of mass deforestation, human-rights violations and dying orangutans. In Indonesia and Malaysia, where some 85% of the world's palm oil is produced, more than 16 million hectares of land — rainforest, peat bogs and old rubber plantations — have been taken over by oil palm, and there is no sign of the industry slowing down.
Despite its bad reputation, oil palm is the most productive oil crop in the world. Oilseed rape (canola) currently produces only about one-sixth of the oil per hectare — soya bean only one-tenth. But oil-palm plantations still aren't getting as much as they could out of their plants.
The main problem is that genetic and epigenetic variables can cause some palms to underproduce. And because oil palms mature slowly, growers typically don't know for three to four years whether the trees they plant will turn out to be star performers or worthless wood.
That's where Orion comes in. When the leaf punches sent out around southeast Asia return, Orion technicians process the disc of greenery within and can send growers a report on the quality of their young plants. Lakey predicts that, if adopted on a large scale, the test could raise industry revenue by about US$4 billion per year. And, importantly, it could do so without expanding plantations. "We can get more oil for an equivalent area of land — this could help take the pressure off deforestation," Lakey says.
The world's most hated crop is not kale?
Palm Oil Was Supposed to Help Save the Planet. Instead It Unleashed a Catastrophe.
The fields outside Kotawaringin village in Central Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, looked as if they had just been cleared by armies. None of the old growth remained — only charred stumps poking up from murky, dark pools of water. In places, smoke still curled from land that days ago had been covered with lush jungle. Villagers had burned it all down, clearing the way for a lucrative crop whose cultivation now dominates the entire island: the oil-palm tree.
The dirt road was ruler straight, but deep holes and errant boulders tossed our tiny Toyota back and forth. Trucks coughed out black smoke, their beds brimming over with seven-ton loads of palm fruit rocking back and forth on tires as tall as people. Clear-cut expanses soon gave way to a uniform crop of oil-palm groves: orderly trees, a sign that we had crossed into an industrial palm plantation. Oil-palm trees look like the coconut-palm trees you see on postcards from Florida — they grow to more than 60 feet tall and flourish on the peaty wetland soil common in lowland tropics. But they are significantly more valuable. Every two weeks or so, each tree produces a 50-pound bunch of walnut-size fruit, bursting with a red, viscous oil that is more versatile than almost any other plant-based oil of its kind. Indonesia is rich in timber and coal, but palm oil is its biggest export. Around the world, the oil from its meat and seeds has long been an indispensable ingredient in everything from soap to ice cream. But it has now become a key ingredient of something else: biodiesel, fuel for diesel engines that has been wholly or partly made from vegetable oil.
Finally we emerged, and as we crested a hill, the plantations fell into an endless repetition of tidy bunches stretching for miles, looking almost like the rag of a Berber carpet. Occasionally, a shard of an old ironwood tree shot into the air, a remnant of the primordial canopy of dense rain forest that dominated the land until very recently.
How a country suddenly went 'crazy rich'
Indonesia, the nation with the world's largest Muslim population, is home to a rapidly growing middle class. As Rebecca Henschke reports from Jakarta, this has given rise to a striking phenomenon - the so-called "Crazy Rich" Indonesians.
[...] The hashtag #crazyrichsurabayans started trending on social media after a local teacher at an elite school shared anecdotes about the family of one of her students - tales of them travelling to get their vaccinations done in Japan and of holidays in Europe. She is now writing a book about it and there is talk of a movie.
Recently, the luxurious lavish wedding of a couple from Surabaya was dubbed the ultimate Crazy Rich Surabayans event by local media. Hundreds of guests from Indonesia and abroad attended, it was reported, and all were said to have been entered into a prize draw for a Jaguar sports car. The groom, it's understood, had proposed with the assistance of a flash mob in front of hundreds of total strangers at the Venetian Macao resort. Many members of Indonesia's growing upper-middle class, concentrated solely in the west of the country, have money their parents would never have dreamed of - and most think it's normal, and perhaps even essential, to show it off.
Following a massive reduction in the country's poverty rate in the last two decades, one in every five Indonesians now belongs to the middle class. They're riding a commodities boom - the burning and churning-up of this vast archipelago's rich natural resources, including logging, palm oil, coal, gold and copper. This, combined with aggressive domestic spending, low taxes and little enforcement of labour laws, means that those who know how to play the system are raking it in.
"Surabaya is the capital of East Java province in Indonesia. Surabaya is the second-largest city in Indonesia with a population of over 3 million within the city proper and over 10 million in the Greater Surabaya metropolitan area, known as Gerbangkertosusila."
Indonesia is the world's 4th most populous country with over 261 million people as of 2016.
Recently:
Palm Oil was Supposed to Help Save the Planet. Instead it Unleashed a Catastrophe
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:21PM (6 children)
Have less kids, educate the uneducated so they have less kids in future generations.
As long as we have an increasing world population, this kind of resource competition will continue. Not mentioned, but in the same area are large industrial plantations of rubber trees (originally a tree from South America), so the choice might also be palm oil for processed food, vs. natural rubber for tires (synthetic rubber is not a 100% replacement for natural rubber.)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Friday May 22 2020, @03:14AM (4 children)
Replace cars with drones and Zoom meetings, eliminate rubber tire demand.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:22AM (3 children)
Replacing cars does very little these days (in USA)...light vehicle sales are primarily pickups and SUVs.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 22 2020, @05:06AM (2 children)
Generation COVID™ won't drive, travel, eat out, shop IRL/offline, or go to work. No need for cars, pickups, SUVs, minivans, or bicycles.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @12:37PM (1 child)
> ... or bicycles.
Time will tell about the future need for rubber tires, but as a counter-example bicycle sales are up,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2020/05/01/bicycling-booms-during-lockdown-but-theres-a-warning-from-history/#5420390741cf [forbes.com]
Perhaps a fad, but I'm hoping this fad has some staying power (I'm a cyclist, as well as car owner).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday May 22 2020, @12:44PM
Damn, we need a second stimulus check. Err, I mean a second and more deadly pandemic. Stay the eff home.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Friday May 22 2020, @05:16AM
This. The fundamental problem is overpopulation. Most of the world has now stabilized. Asia now needs to reduce its population. Africa, however, has an absolutely frightening population pyramid - massive growth.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:24PM
I read the first sentence of TFS and knew the rest was a complete waste of time.
I mean, who cares what some darkie-loving eurofags, who live it up on grant money (probably my tax dollars, too) lying about "climate change" have to say about *anything*?
Besides, what difference does it make if a bunch of darkies are cutting down trees? If it means my french fries are nice and crispy, cut 'em all down, I say.
And now a bunch of whiny D-types are gonna get all self-righteous, modding me down and droning on about "equality" and "respect for other humans," like anyone really gives a rat's ass about any of that shit.
The worst part is that my white brothers won't stand up for me. They'll remain silent, making lists of the traitors who piled on. And they'll be the first up against the wall, when we take back our birthright.
But that's not enough. The time is now. Stand up for your god-given right to rule over the inferior animals, just as god intended [biblehub.com].
God bless America!
#KAGA!
#TRUMP 2020
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:27PM (2 children)
Is that some new type of nigger? As long as they aren't jihadis I guess we can tolerate them
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:29PM (1 child)
》as long as they aren't jihadis
Bad news... according to Wkikpedia, 87.2% of them are mohammedans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @02:02AM
Worse news, there are 225M of them there [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DrkShadow on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:28PM (18 children)
It's not _beef_ that is the problem -- it's how beef is farmed. It's not that Bison is a solution -- if they're farmed in the same way as beef, they'll have the same (similar?) problems.
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. That includes: at the expense of everyone else. Especially at the expense of everyone else. (I'm not sure that Lords, however, is a better solution.)
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.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:54PM (5 children)
¿Qué? The Berlin Wall fell 3 decades ago.
If by socialism you mean a system where corporations and 'rich' people pay their fair share of tax to feed into the welfare state of universal healthcare, education and public transit...
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @12:05AM (4 children)
I keep hearing about this mythical "fair share".
In Europe, the approach appears to be: tax the middle class until their nuts squeak like party balloons.
This is why the US doesn't have such a system: the middle class simply doesn't stand for it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @12:20AM (1 child)
Regardless, Europe isn't socialist.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @11:29AM
You're right. Europe is a continent, with many countries on it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @08:50AM (1 child)
Indeed, in the US the middle class won't stand for it -- it's a _much_ longer game to get all their money.
Instead, they tax the lower class, who don't have the time or money to stand up for themselves -- gotta keep working! Make ends meet! They can't quibble when a corp takes an extra $20, that would take too long, gotta keep working!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2020, @02:30PM
> Instead, they tax the lower class...
How did this get to 1, Insightful? Low income people in the USA don't pay any income tax at all. My sister (disabled) used to work part time in a senior living home. There was a little withheld from her check and when she filed she always got it all back.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 22 2020, @12:38AM (10 children)
How can capitalism be a problem? It has given us the ability to destroy the planet, no other economic system has ever achieved such greatness, it must be the ultimate answer to everything! /s
"Sustainable Palm Oil" fits in well with "Ecologically friendly coal," "Military Intelligence," etc.
A single palm tree isn't evil. A grove of 100 is fine. When entire ecosystems are exchanged for plantations, that has gone about 100x too far.
https://www.half-earthproject.org/ [half-earthproject.org]
50% is a sensible near term target. If we were a truly enlightened species, I think we could reduce human population to ~200 million and really make life on Earth a paradise - not again, but for the first time. With modern technology, we would no longer need to fear the megafauna. Imagine the ease with which the Earth could accommodate 200 million humans + 20 nuclear power plants + botique automated farms, wild game preserves with such abundance that meat could be harvested at will...
Or, we can be "happy" with 20 billion people eating bug paste. The 1% solution really sounds better to me.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Friday May 22 2020, @02:04AM (3 children)
Also, once the very poor soil has been exhausted after a few years, the land is left with no cover, and the rains wash what ever is left into the seas.
Palm oil is a disaster, but Professor Matin Qaim is an agricultural economist so he doesn't care about that, he's all about maximising the farmer's short-term profits, because that is all economists think about.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 22 2020, @03:15AM
Re-purposing any land that has had a stable ecosystem on it for 1000+ years with something different is very likely to end poorly. Short term exploitation of the resources, slash and burn gives you a few fertile years, but if all your farm is doing is maximal extraction... you're gonna need a reliable source of phosphates, and weed killer, and pesticides.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @06:45AM (1 child)
You're right about poor soils and erosion.
You're completely wrong about agricultural economics. A large part of it is looking at the long term effects and stabilising versus destabilising factors, including ecological.
But I do admit that your misconceptions are popular. Lots of people misunderstand what various branches of economics are about.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 23 2020, @03:29AM
Define long term. Do the economics look at a sustainable solution in perpetuity? Do the economists even know how that plays out when the oil-palms age out, or become diseased/blighted due to their monoculture, etc.?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @02:52AM (5 children)
Do you really think this is a good idea? I suppose it could have an upside. Are you willing to sacrifice to make it happen? [soylentnews.org]
If so, I'm sure you could be accommodated. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Friday May 22 2020, @03:10AM (4 children)
If prosperity really is the key to voluntary birth control, then - well, fuck, what about the 80% of the world population that still lives in squalor?
Prosperity didn't work on me - had 2 kids, might have had 3 if the first didn't show up with severe Autism just after the second was born. Didn't work on my Arab neighbor in Miami - 6 kids going on 7 when they moved away to a larger house. Didn't work on my Catholic neighbors here, two $400K houses - in no particular hurry to sell the last one, so I guess they fit the "prosperity" profile, IDK if they've got 4 or 5 and IDK if they're done, either. Didn't work on my best friends from college, they moved to Germany and still had 3.
The coming generations need to get "woke" to the fact that they're already screwed by the last 50 years of population explosion, and if they follow in our footsteps, miserable doesn't begin to describe the lives of their grandchildren. It's not a short term fix, but it's not a short term problem, either. If we could just roll back to the population levels of 100+ years ago, we'd be in great shape.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:57AM (2 children)
That was my point. How do you propose we do so? Mass sterilization/murder?
Are you advocating for that? If so, you should be the first one up against the wall. [soylentnews.org]
If not, how do you suggest we dispose of 70% of the current population?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:04AM (1 child)
Coronavirus 2: Population Boogaloo
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:12PM
Call me old-fashioned. but I'd rather go out like this [youtube.com].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @04:24AM
> If prosperity really is the key to voluntary birth control
No it is the ‘squeeze’ Of modern civilization that does it, nobody has the time or money to have kids while establishing a career. Then once established and finally having kids, they get one or two before the wife hits low fertility.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday May 22 2020, @07:18PM
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!
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:
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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 21 2020, @11:33PM (8 children)
Telling all them tropical developing nations to stop "destroying the environment" after they pulled the same shit?!
The "progressive" West needs a dark tea time of soul, looking in the mirror, looking deep.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @12:03AM (7 children)
No, developing nations need to take the moral lead and forego the high-consumption lifestyle epitomized by the west. Embrace poverty in this world and reap the rewards in the next.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 22 2020, @12:17AM (6 children)
The high-consumption lifestyle could also be altered to be more sustainable. For example, homeless could be provided affordable housing and pay for that rent by cooking for each other with veggies and protein sourced by local farms utilizing inner-city plots of land that could be used to grow produce and livestock but would be otherwise unused ruins (such as the condemned ruins of Detroit housing projects) considered to be too uneconomic for Jews to profit from. The homeless and convicts could be taught basic cooking skills, with others taught meat slaughter and vegetable gardening techniques including hydroponic techniques, to utilize multi-story buildings to grow veggies. We could more fully enclose our ecosystem into self-sustainability that way.
Then we wouldn't have to depend on anybody, including those filthy Mexicans, for our nutritional needs, and we can seal the border for good. Those nasty motherfuckers had their shot at proving themselves to be Americans, but they are spreading COVID-19 and overwhelming our border hospitals, they don't bother to learn English and shit up neighborhoods with their noisy and crime-ridden infestation. We have a lot of homeless we can use and we can afford them a better quality of life, we don't need those ungrateful trash Mexicans here no more. Deport 'em all.
(Score: 3, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Friday May 22 2020, @12:36AM (5 children)
You guys fought a war over using people.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday May 22 2020, @12:50AM (4 children)
Modern homeless and work-release convicts can already leave the plantation whenever they choose, but the bound slaves to which you are referring were brought here by the Jewish, and enslaved by the Jewish. Apparently it wasn't clear from my use of the word "use" that we could offer the homeless an elevated state of dignity (and as an extention, a more personal freedom) in return for their collective elevation of the nation's state of independence from foreign trash.
Look at all the Western nations (Europe) that are falling prey to internal violence nowadays. That is happening precisely because Jews don't like other nations to have independence and celebration of their culture, because nationalism resists Jewish control. And if the Jews can't control your nation, they will do their damndest to destroy it. If you don't believe me, then ask France, Germany, Sweden, Pennsylvania, Illinois, California, New York, and Michigan; to name a few. They would go so far as to collaborate with China to work in concert to subvert and destroy the United States of America. Jews are seditious at best and treasonous at worst.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:00AM
When all you are is an antisemite, all problems look like a jew.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @01:01AM (1 child)
Too many lagers today, Adolf?
(Score: 3, Funny) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 22 2020, @05:34PM
How dare you compare someone who wants to murder all the Jews to Hitler you TROLL!
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday May 22 2020, @01:58AM
It's very funny how you spout off about Europe, as if you'd actually been there.
It is very touching you're concerned about all those school shootings they have in Europe though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @03:09AM
WTF's wrong with using recycled motor oil?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @09:44AM
Does anyone believe that most soybean/canola/sunflower oil farms were planted on deserts? They're only called "sustainable" because forests weren't chopped down for them _recently_.
So the same goes for palm oil. Call them sustainable after the second/third harvest or so ;). In fact palm oil has a higher yield per acre than most vegetable oils, so less forest has to be chopped down per gallon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2020, @09:20PM
i have a few plants and tress in my garden. i am happy to report that for the chickens and squirrels the 5 palm oil nut tree are the most popular.
the mango tree also gets visits ...
imagining being a squirrel i totally see that my garden is crap when it comes to calories (don't blame me, i didn't have a hand in planting it) and the palm oil nut is a god sent ...