What is Palm Oil and Why Do We Think It's Bad?
By Hannah Brookes
WHAT IS PALM OIL?
Palm oil is a type of vegetable oil, like sunflower or rapeseed oil, that comes from the fruit of African Oil Palm Trees (scientific name Elaeis Guineensis). Oil palm trees grow naturally in rainforests, but are also being planted and farmed on an immense scale to export for profit.
Oil palm trees originated in south-west Africa, but were imported to south-east Asia just over a century ago. Now, Indonesia and Malaysia produce around 85% of the global supply of palm oil, although there are also 42 other countries that grow and export it.
Palm oil is in a huge proportion of the goods we consume – an ingredient in around 50% of all packaged products currently found in supermarkets. It can be found in crisps, bread, ice cream, chocolate, pizza, deodorant, skincare products, and shampoo to name just a few. In some countries it is also used as biofuel and animal feed. The global demand for palm oil means that it is currently being grown and produced at a massive scale. It is the sheer extent of palm tree plantations that causes mass destruction of the natural environment, rather than the oil palm tree itself being inherently bad.
BENEFITS OF PALM OIL
Clearly palm oil would not have become such a dominant resource if it did not have some positive attributions. It is an extremely efficient crop, meaning it produces much more oil per area of land than other crops such as coconut trees. It also requires less pesticides and fertilisers to achieve a high yield. It is an extremely versatile product with multiple properties and functions, and this is what makes it useful in such a wide range of products. Some of its key attributes are that: it resists oxidation and therefore gives products a longer shelf-life; it is semi-solid at room temperature so can be used in spreads and will remain the right texture; it is stable at high temperatures allowing fried products to achieve that crispy and crunchy texture we love; and it is colourless and odourless, and so isn’t off-putting in food or toiletry products.
In addition, the farming of palm oil has provided millions of jobs for small farmers, helping them to earn money to support their families and climb their way out of poverty.
NEGATIVES OF PALM OIL
However, there are also some pretty significant negative impacts associated with the mass farming of palm oil. Palm oil production is estimated to have been responsible for about 8% of the world’s deforestation between 1990 and 2008. Deforestation on a huge scale is occurring mostly in Indonesia and Malaysia, as the forests are being burned down to clear areas for oil palm trees, despite this often being illegal.
Not only do these forest fires destroy whole complex ecosystems and leave already endangered animals such as tigers, orangutans, and elephants with no habitat, they also release vast amounts of carbon dioxide and black soot into the air. This causes extreme air pollution levels (which is very harmful to the health of the local people) and emits millions of tonnes of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere. As forests are Earth’s second largest carbon sink after the oceans, deforestation also means reducing the Earth’s ability to capture CO2 out of the atmosphere, and therefore leaves us even more vulnerable to global warming and climate change.
In the effort to continue increasing the production of palm oil, local governments and corporations often claim land that is inhabited by indigenous people, who ‘own’ and live off it. With their livelihoods and homes destroyed in the quest for more palm oil production and with little to no compensation for their loss, these people have no choice but to become plantation workers. They are often then exploited and their children forced into child labour, doing incredibly difficult and demanding physical work whilst being paid next to nothing and living in appalling conditions.
Deforestation and palm oil plantations have also been linked to flooding in Indonesia. The change in land use has led to more compressed soil that cannot absorb water as efficiently leading to surface runoff and flooding in the rainy season. These floods often result in the loss of people’s homes and livelihoods. On top of this is the increasing frequency of flooding anyway due to climate change. Yet another example of developing countries bearing the full force of the climate crisis.
THE FUTURE OF PALM OIL
Consumption of palm oil is likely to increase in the future, as we continue to eat more processed food, and as the global population continues to rise. However, there are ways in which we can try to mitigate the damage that palm oil production does to the environment.
In 2014, the EU introduced labelling laws stating that if a product has palm oil in it, then it has to be stated specifically on the label, rather than using certain unspecific terms such as ‘contains vegetable oil’ that were legal before. This enables consumers to be aware of when they are buying products containing palm oil, and to avoid it if they desire. However, boycotting palm oil is not the answer. As stated before, palm oil is an extremely efficient crop. If we all boycotted palm oil and switched to an alternative we would need even more land and deforestation to meet the demand. If we switched to coconut oil for example, we would need between 4 and 10 times as much land, which is just moving the problem to other parts of the world and threatening other habitats and species. Additionally, despite significant levels of worker exploitation, millions of people and smallholder farmers around the world still rely on the palm oil industry for their livelihoods.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is working to set production standards and strict guidelines, providing certification guaranteeing the sustainable production of palm oil. This allows companies and manufactures to only buy palm oil that meets sustainability and production standards, creating awareness around sustainable production. Of course it is still hard to ensure that the farmers are following the rules, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. The UK government has committed to moving toward 100% of palm oil in the UK being from sustainable sources, that don’t harm people or nature. In 2016 the UK had reached 75% of all palm oil coming from sustainable sources. This is great progress but clearly there is still more to be done. More action and speed should be demanded to reach 100%.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gokkon, Basten, ‘Worsening floods in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island linked to oil palm plantations’, Mongabay, 2020, accessed 2 September 2021, https://india.mongabay.com/2020/10/worsening-floods-in-indonesias-sumatra-island-linked-to-oil-palm-plantations/
Gonçalves, André, ‘Is Palm Oil Bad For The Planet? Can Palm Oil Be Sustainable?’, You Matter, 2018, accessed 3 September 2021, https://youmatter.world/en/is-palm-oil-bad-for-the-planet-can-palm-oil-be-sustainable/
Newsround, ‘What is Palm Oil and Why is it Thought to be Bad?’, BBC, 2018, accessed 3 September 2021, https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/39492207
WWF, ‘Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard’, accessed 1 September 2021, https://palmoilscorecard.panda.org/solutions