Learning to love the world's most hated crop

A - Papers appearing in refereed journals

Jackson, T. A., Crawford, J. W., Traeholt, C. and Sanders, T. A. B. 2019. Learning to love the world's most hated crop. Journal of Oil Palm Research. 31 (September), pp. 331-347. https://doi.org/10.21894/jopr.2019.0046

AuthorsJackson, T. A., Crawford, J. W., Traeholt, C. and Sanders, T. A. B.
Abstract

The 2019 Inter-governmental Panel (IPCC) Report on Climate Change and Land highlighted the urgency and scale of the environmental impact from human-induced landscape change. Palm oil has historically had a particularly negative reputation for driving deforestation, biodiversity loss, greenhouse gas emissions, social exploitation and damaging health. In the eyes of many in the West, it is regarded as the world’s most hated crop. However, palm is highly productive compared with other crops and produces 40% of the worlds edible oil from only 5% of vegetable oil producing land and 0.4% of agricultural land in total. It has the potential to meet future demand for oil with minimum additional environmental and climate impact compared with other sources of vegetable oil. The related high value density has the potential to move millions of vulnerable smallholder farmers out of poverty. Given the conclusions of the IPCC Climate and Land Report, it is therefore important to re-examine the crop’s reputation in light of the accumulated evidence and to properly understand the full impacts across the environmental, health, social and economic factors. We present a comprehensive review of the benefits and risks of the crop across these dimensions and provide a new synthesis. We conclude that while oil palm has had a significant negative impact on habitat and biodiversity, it plays a minor role compared with poaching, illegal logging and threats from climate change. There are important opportunities for the industry to reverse this damage. Its reputation for negative health impacts are not backed up by the scientific evidence and indeed there may be health benefits from substituting some oils in the diet with oil palm. Positive social and economic impacts are most obvious in areas where proper market-led economies are in place, but there can be significant negative social impacts in less developed areas. We conclude that much of the reputation of palm oil is not based on a balanced interpretation of the scientific evidence. Provided future development is zero deforestation, does not occur on peat, uses methane capture technology at the mills, empowers indigenous smallholders and supports the regeneration of secondary forest, we conclude that oil palm can be the most environmentally, socially and economically sustainable means to meet future demand for vegetable oil. Indeed, with pro-active collaboration with relevant non-government organisations, oil palm can be part of the solution to reversing the degradation of tropical forest biomes

Keywordsoil palm; response to critics; sustainability
Year of Publication2019
JournalJournal of Oil Palm Research
Journal citation31 (September), pp. 331-347
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.21894/jopr.2019.0046
Web address (URL)http://jopr.mpob.gov.my/learning-to-love-the-worlds-most-hated-crop-review-articles/
Open accessPublished as green open access
Publisher's version
Copyright license
CC BY
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online13 Sep 2019
Publication process dates
Accepted13 Sep 2019
PublisherMalaysian Palm Oil Board
ISSN1511-2780

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