Palm Oil: An Environmental Hazard or a Sustainable Source of Income

Palm Oil: A Source of Environmental Concern or a Sustainable Source of Income
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Palm Oil: An Environmental Hazard or a Sustainable Source of Income
Introduction
Palm oil makes for one of the products whose production raises divergent views across the social, political, and economic domains worldwide. Among divergent views around the production of palm oil are its implications on the environment against its economic value along the supply chain to the end users. Palm oil is one of the widely used edible fats in developing countries made from the fruits of oil palm trees. Oil palm trees only grow in the tropical climate or the tropics and produce high-quality palm oil. The oil palm tree is a source of two types of oil based on which part of the fruit it is extracted. The flesh of the oil palm fruit produces palm oil while the seed provides palm kernel oil. Palm oil is mainly used for cooking in developing countries, with a wide range of uses in other economic sectors. For instance, palm oil makes for one of the key ingredients in the production of detergents, cosmetics, biofuel, and other food products. Indonesia and Malaysia are the biggest palm oil producers in the world, accounting for 84% of global palm oil production (Ritchie, 2020). It suffices, therefore, that palm oil creates greater yields and more economic value across the supply chain than alternative vegetable oils in the market. Its production and global demand are on the rise leading to the rise of more plantations in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The rapid expansion of plantations exposes the tropical forests and their inhabitants, including human beings, to the catastrophic effects of climate change due to deforestation and other social issues such as poor working conditions and trading terms for small-scale farmers. This paper explores the aforementioned divergent views on palm oil production through three analytical frameworks; market-based solutions, environmental hazards and risks, and political economy.
Market-based Solutions
           The increasing demand and production of palm oil globally account for widespread expansion initiatives by multinational corporations and small-scale farmers. Such expansion initiatives for oil palm plantations lead to rapid deforestation in different countries by both large-scale and small-scale farmers (Ritchie, 2020). The rapid expansion of oil palm plantations in palm oil-producing countries is also characteristic of social issues such as land conflicts, human rights violations, and labor issues. For instance, in Indonesia, only 1 million hectares of indigenous land is recognized as acquired land for plantation expansion out of the approximately 70 million hectares of land grabbed by corporate organizations in palm oil production. Such corporate land grabbing leads to the internal displacement of people in Indonesia, such as the Dayak people in Borneo (Ritchie, 2020). The intense expansion initiatives also and the quest for satisfying the rising global demand for palm oil further leads to the adoption of unethical labor practices in palm oil plantations. Palm oil plantations account for approximately 200,000 stateless child workers. Such occurrences in ...