The scarcity of palm oil has been circulating in the news over the past few months. On April 28, Indonesia, traditionally the world's largest exporter of palm oil, banned the export of widely used edible oil to address the shortage. The country previously imposed a coal export ban in January to maintain supply at local power plants, which subsequently led to a sharp rise in coal prices from $148 at the end of 2021 to $223 on January 25.
While the coal ban was lifted in early February, experts believe the decision to halt exports of both commodities as a solution to the shortage is problematic. "Is the problem solved?" No," Bima Yudistra-Adi Negra, director of the Center for Economic and Legal Research in Jakarta, told Indonesian reporters. "Instead, it has been met with protests from potential overseas buyers. Such policies need to be discontinued. ”
Hundreds of farmers in Indonesia protested as palm fruit prices fell sharply, while rival palm oil supplier Malaysia took advantage of the opportunity to grab market share. But this new battle is just one chapter in the history of this oil stain. Since the 16th century, palm oil has been closely associated with the transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, and environmental destruction.
Squeeze the oil from the fruit
Palm oil is made by squeezing the fruit or its core of the palm tree Guinean olive. Since the oil remains semi-solid and can be applied at room temperature, it has a long shelf life. It now makes up about 50 percent of packaged foods in the U.S. — including ice cream, instant noodles and other snacks. Beauty products such as soaps, shampoos and lipsticks also use this oil to cleanse and moisturize the skin without melting easily.
The story of palm oil
The transportation and trade of palm oil began in the 1500s, but the invention of margarine based on palm oil led to an explosive increase in demand in the 1900s. Trees are planted on plantations to mass-produce palm oil, where working conditions are often abusive, coercive and even violent – a situation that has continued into modern times.
After World War II, Indonesia and Malaysia became independent from Britain and relied heavily on palm oil exports. Then in the 1960s, palm oil faced competition in the form of butter and lard, which usually came from pigs. Jonathan M. Thompson, Associate Professor of Global History at Michigan Technological University, said: E. Robbins wrote in a post in The Conversation that in the decades that followed, demand declined as health concerns about saturated fats became more numerous. But by the 1990s, Robbins noted, the campaign to eliminate trans fats (naturally found in the guts of ruminants) opened the door for palm oil, making it a "cheap and effective alternative" to human trans fats. Palm oil production quadrupled between 1995 and 2015 – 85% of it came from Malaysia and Indonesia.
Palm oil is associated with environmental issues as well as ethical issues. According to the World Wildlife Fund, the conversion of tropical forests into palm oil plantations has created a number of problems, including the elimination of habitats for endangered species, increased air pollution from forest burning, water pollution by pesticides and fertilizers, and increased soil erosion and loss of key carbon sinks.
Citing these ecological hazards, the EU has set a target for phasing out the use of palm oil biofuels by 2030. Some companies have removed palm oil from their products. But the changes don't always persist: Britain-based food chain Iceland has stopped using palm oil and has only recently resumed use because the Ukraine crisis has wreaked so much damage to supply chains.
But some groups, including the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), argue that a boycott could lead to even greater damage. According to a 2018 IUCN report, while palm oil cultivation endangers biodiversity and organisms such as orangutans, gibbons and tigers, swapping plantations for canola, soybeans or sunflowers could lead to more biodiversity loss and deforestation. "When you think about the catastrophic impacts of palm oil on biodiversity from a global perspective, there is no simple solution," IUCN Director-General Inge Andersen said in a 2018 press release. "Half the world's population uses palm oil in food, and if we ban or boycott it, other oils that need more land could take its place." Palm oil is here to stay, and there is an urgent need for concerted action to make palm oil production more sustainable and to ensure that all parties – governments, producers and supply chains – live up to their sustainability commitments. ”
What indonesia's ban really means
Despite the sustainability issues with palm oil, the ban doesn't actually have much to do with the planet — instead, growing demand and oil shortages have caused prices to soar beyond the acceptable range of prices for Indonesian consumers. Unlike many Americans and other Westerners who may only consume oil as a product ingredient, for Indonesians, oil is essential for everyday cooking, whether it's raising a family or running a business.
The ban hurts local farmers even more. "The impact of the export ban on smallholder farmers is enormous because many of them have no other source of income," Mansuetus Dalto, head of the Indonesian Oil Palm Farmers' Union in West Java, told Al Jazeera. Dato said the ban exacerbated the economic turmoil that began with COVID-19. "A lot of farmers are struggling, especially in the last two years. They had hoped that the situation would start to improve after the pandemic, but if there were local or global political issues, it would also affect them. ”
There is no simple answer to the problem of palm oil production. Cutting off exports from specific countries, whether oil or fossil fuels, won't let these complex problems go away. It often puts those injured in a more dangerous position.