Making Palm Oil A ‘Sustainable' Crop

Rather than spending time to develop environmental and social criteria, India could use the existing global norms for imports

- Tanu Singh

The Malaysian Prime Minister’s allusive remarks on Kashmir have added a new controversy to the already turbulent world of palm oil. Indonesia and Malaysia, the two largest producers, are already facing allegations of destruction of the world’s most bio-diverse forests to grow oil palm.

Other charges relating to the activities subsequent to deforestation and destruction of wild habitat, such as land clearing for plantations, release of mill effluents, burning and haze have been triggering debate about the environmental and social impacts of palm plantation.

India being the largest consumer of palm oil has a considerable stake in securing sustainable supply and it is high time such issues are addressed.

Palm oil comes from the fruit of oil palm trees and can be obtained either from the fleshy fruit or from its kernel. Oil palm trees are native of Africa and were brought to Indonesia and Malaysia as ornamental plants. Palm oil is an incredibly efficient crop, producing more oil per land area than any other equivalent vegetable oil crop.

It is an important crop for many countries where millions of farmers depend on producing palm oil for their livelihood. The fact that palm oil is also the common ingredient in packaged food, shampoo, toothpaste and cosmetics, makes the impact of the biofuel far bigger.

The world export of palm oil in 2018 was $30.35 billion. Indonesia and Malaysia are the major exporters with exports of $26.2 billion and $14.9 billion, respectively.

As much as 86 per cent of the world’s requirement of palm oil is fulfilled by these two countries. The major importers are India, China, Pakistan and the Netherlands ( it is used as a biofuel the Netherlands).