Deforestation
Palm Oil

Who’s Responsible for Palm Oil Deforestation—Small Farmers or Big Companies?

Burgess COMMENTARY
The root cause of deforestation arising from palm oil production is the demand for palm oil as an ingredient in all sorts of food products. Population growth means more food is required. More prosperity means more food is in demand. Ingredients for food have to come from somewhere. The question is what is the optimum land use to produce the ingredients that are needed while at the same time getting the best environmental outcomes both in terms of carbon sequestration and in terms of ecosystem resilience, not to mention the human and social dimension of palm oil production. Peter Burgess http://www.truevaluemetrics.org
Peter Burgess

Who’s Responsible for Palm Oil Deforestation—Small Farmers or Big Companies?

In recent days, with massive fires in Southeast Asia again creating the dangerous haze that endangers the health and lives of millions, we’ve seen the recurrence of the claim that fires and deforestation are caused by small farmers, not big companies and their plantations. For example, Siti Nurbaya Bakar of Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Ministry told the Jakarta Globe that the pledge by palm oil producers to end deforestation was “too restrictive on Indonesian smallholder palm oil producers” who wouldn’t be able to afford it.

This is a manifestation of an old narrative: that deforestation and environmental destruction are the fault of the poor. Since they’re doing this “just to feed their families,” it would be unjust to stop them, and since the big companies aren’t the ones to blame, it wouldn’t do any good to go after them either. So: too bad, but nothing can be done.

This story is often repeated, not only in Southeast Asia about palm oil but throughout the tropics, and has sometimes been influential among people who feel torn between their love of the environment and their dedication to social justice. But, is it true? Here’s what the scientific evidence shows.

Last year, an important paper on the subject was published in Conservation Letters by Janice Lee and colleagues that looked at just this question. Using data from Sumatra covering the period 2000-2010, they found that smallholders were responsible for just 11% of the deforestation, even though their farms covered about 40% of the land in oil palm. Large private enterprises, on the other hand, caused 88% of the deforestation. In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, the figures were almost identical: 9% and 90%. So it’s overwhelmingly the big companies that are destroying forest to create oil palm plantations and causing dangerous climate change.

A related recent study was done in Peru by Victor Gutierrez-Velez and colleagues, and was published in 2011 in Environmental Research Letters. They found that, while large landowners had higher palm oil yields than small farmers, they nonetheless destroyed much more forest because they preferred to get large concessions in forested regions rather than expand onto already-cleared land.

Most of the deforestation due to oil palm is caused by large plantations. SOURCE: Sharon Smith, UCS.

These studies not only show that the narrative about who’s causing deforestation is incorrect. They also reflect broader, global issues about the unequal distribution of land. A recent background paper for the 2014 issue of the FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture report estimated that the world has somewhat over 570 million farms, and the vast majority of these are very small. In fact, more than 475 million of them are less than 2 hectares (5 acres) in size, and more than 410 million are less than 1 hectare. But while 84% of farms are under 2 hectares, they control only 12% of global farmland.

Another part of the puzzle comes from an important 2010 study in Nature Geoscience, by Ruth DeFries and colleagues. They showed how the causes of deforestation have changed in the 21st century. It’s not driven by peasant farmers producing for their own subsistence, but predominantly by large-scale commercial farms, ranches and plantations producing commodities for urban and export markets.

Taken together, this evidence shows that if we keep on repeating the 20th-century narrative about the causes of deforestation, we’re blaming the wrong people and giving the large and mid-size companies a pass. This story was effectively rebutted in Indonesia by Mansuetus Darto, who chairs Indonesia’s Oil Palm Smallholders Union (SPKS). The government is using “the welfare of oil palm farmers” to oppose attempts to reduce deforestation, he told the Jakarta Globe, while failing to address smallholders’ real problems. He pointed to an Agriculture Ministry regulation that prevents palm oil farmers from getting bank loans, and the ending of both training for them to increase their yields and the provision of good-quality seeds that would allow them to do this.

Darto concluded, “The real focus should be on how to increase productivity instead of expanding the plantations.” He’s absolutely right.

Bookmark and Share Posted in: Food and Agriculture, Tropical Forests Tags: agriculture, Palm Oil, plantations, Smallholders, Tropical deforestation Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world.

Nature Geoscience 3, 178 - 181 (2010) Published online: 7 February 2010 | doi:10.1038/ngeo756 Subject Category: Biogeochemistry

Deforestation driven by urban population growth and agricultural trade in the twenty-first century Ruth S. DeFries1, Thomas Rudel2, Maria Uriarte1 & Matthew Hansen3 Abstract Reducing atmospheric carbon emissions from tropical deforestation is at present considered a cost-effective option for mitigating climate change. However, the forces associated with tropical forest loss are uncertain1. Here we use satellite-based estimates of forest loss for 2000 to 2005 (ref. 2) to assess economic, agricultural and demographic correlates across 41 countries in the humid tropics. Two methods of analysis—linear regression and regression tree—show that forest loss is positively correlated with urban population growth and exports of agricultural products for this time period. Rural population growth is not associated with forest loss, indicating the importance of urban-based and international demands for agricultural products as drivers of deforestation. The strong trend in movement of people to cities in the tropics is, counter-intuitively, likely to be associated with greater pressures for clearing tropical forests. We therefore suggest that policies to reduce deforestation among local, rural populations will not address the main cause of deforestation in the future. Rather, efforts need to focus on reducing deforestation for industrial-scale, export-oriented agricultural production, concomitant with efforts to increase yields in non-forested lands to satisfy demands for agricultural products. To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).