by Brian Monteith – 3 minute read
DID YOU KNOW, today is World Rainforest Day? If not I doubt you are alone. Such is the plethora of special days, you cannot be expected to know them all. So don’t feel guilty about not knowing about World Rainforest Day. After all, I’m sure you’re already doing your bit to save the world’s rainforests by boycotting foods with palm oil listed as an ingredient?
Actually, I need to break it to you that if you are avoiding palm oil then you are probably doing more harm to rainforests than you realise. You see, not all vegetable oils are the same and sustainable palm oil is, by a country mile, far better for our environment and our global climate than the standard alternatives of soybean, sunflower or rapeseed oil.
A big lie has been propagated by vested interests that the easy way to stop the clearance of rainforests for agricultural land is to inspect every processed food in the local supermarket for palm oil and if it is listed put it back on the shelf. You might feel good for a nanosecond, but just as a butterfly flapping its wings in a Brazilian rainforest might cause someone to drive the wrong way down a one-way street (it’s Chaos Theory, check it out) rejecting your bakery favourite or that jar of curry sauce made with the help of palm oil can have consequences too – and they are bad. It will likely cause greater deforestation.
Unfortunately new research from Chester Zoo and its partner foods manufacturer Ferrero has revealed public understanding of sustainable palm oil remains low. Although 62 per cent of Brits surveyed are aware of palm oil and its uses, only 11 per cent said they understood what sustainable palm oil is, and 39 per cent admitted to having just a vague idea. That explains why more than half of UK adults (58 per cent) report that they sometimes actively avoid products containing palm oil due to this confusion.
Fortunately the survey also found Brits are open to change, with 71 per cent saying that learning more about sustainable Palm oil would influence their buying decisions and 74 per cent of those who are already aware of it say it’s important to choose it.
The real world reality is we have been seeking for decades to find ingredients that make us healthier, cost less and use up less land to cultivate. Farmers are no fools, and will always seek to grow crops that give them the best return for their investment, but the outcome varies depending on their own local climate (rainfall, temperatures etc), the nature of their soil and their ability to plant and harvest the crop. For Europe’s already cleared forests that has meant the use of oils made from seeds such as Sunflowers, Rape and Soy.
In South East Asia the preference is palm oil and we should be thankful for that, for if it did not exist the deforestation in Malaysia, Indonesia and other neighbouring countries would be far, far greater. Some environmental zealots like to think of a world without palm oil but if they were to have their way then to produce the same amount of refined oil would require far more land, meaning more clearance of vegetation and fewer undisturbed habitats for local fauna to live in.
Consider some facts. Palm oil requires around one-ninth the land of substitutes like rapeseed, olive and soybean. Because of its high yield, palm oil takes up just 0.38 per cent of global agricultural land but contributes over 56 per cent of global edible oils & fats exports.
To give some sense of scale, globally the world currently uses 322 million hectares (an area the size of India) to grow oil crops. If we sourced food oils only from the demonised Oil Palm we would need just 77 million hectares – four times less, meaning there would have been far less deforestation – but were we to choose olive oil then we’d need 660 million hectares. That’s the equivalent of two Indias by landmass.
It may be hard to swallow for virtue signallers, but anyone wanting to protect the rainforest should be looking at the ingredients and rejecting other oils in preference to palm oil.
Were they able to, I’ve no doubt European farmers would be growing the Oil Palm too. That the EU seeks to place high tariffs on palm oil and subsidise sunflower and rapeseed cultivation has everything to do with protecting European farmers’ incomes and little to do with saving the planet or its rainforests.
The good news is deforestation from Oil Palm cultivation is trending down. There is a lot of work being done to ensure this economically vital crop can continue being produced without damage to the environment. For instance in Malaysia some 83 per cent of palm oil refining capacity is now certified as sustainable under a commitment to ‘No Deforestation, Peat and Exploitation (NDPE)’.
The fundamental point is if we did not cultivate Oil Palm but used other vegetable oil sources, their far lower yields would require substantially more land, resulting in greater levels of deforestation.
So think carefully about it. Farmers make their crop choices not just because of climate, soil and price – but also because of yield. The fact that in South East Asia farmers can choose palm oil has reduced the amount of global deforestation that might have taken place. We should be thankful to those farmers and happy to purchase any products that use sustainable palm oil instead of the alternatives.
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Brian Monteith is a former member of the Scottish and European Parliaments and has worked on many development projects across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
Photo of an oil palm harvest from Adobe Stock