Palmoil - The Golden Crop For Poverty Aleviation And Industrialization of the Rural Masses?

PALMOIL CONQUERS RURAL POVERTY - Pablito P. Pamplona, Phd
(Link: http://ppdci.org/?p=225#more-225)
Some excerpts:

Before Petroleum Oil, Now Palm Oil Brings Prosperity

Increase in the demand and price of petroleum oil in the 1970s wiped out poverty in the Arab world and brought economic prosperity to many Arab countries. Now another oil, the palm oil, produced by the oil palm trees, emerges as a potent tool in overcoming rural poverty in countries located in latitudinal zones of the tropics suitable for palm oil production. Among the four member countries of the ASEAN which are located in this latitudinal zone, only the Philippines failed to use this tool putting itself at the tail end of rural prosperity and overcoming rural poverty. May be our leaders are now aware of this development in our southern neighbors. Hence this special report.

Should the Philippines join its three ASEAN neighbors in using oil palm as a tool against poverty and bring prosperity and peace to the rural communities of Mindanao?

New generations of planting materials of oil palm in the form of ramets developed jointly by MPOB and SH Biotech in Sabah shows potential yield of 10.0 tons of oil/ha per year. Among the vegetable oil crops, palm oil is the cheapest.

Table 1. Productivity and percent contribution of various vegetable oil crops.

Crops	Oil Yield/ha	Percent World Production
1. Palm Oil	6.20	35
2, Soybean	0.40	27
3. Rapeseed	1.50	15
4. Sunflower	1.20	8
5. Others		15
TOTAL		100

Note: Coconut share in the world vegetable oil production is only 4%. The average yield is only 1.5 t/ha.

As a perennial crop, oil palm trees grow fast and is early maturing; the first fruit matures in just 28 months after field planting as compared to four to five years for coconut trees. Oil palm trees remain productive for 22 to 30 years when the newly developed dwarf hybrids are used for planting. Palm oil is much easier to grow than the coconut trees in terms of culture and processing for oil. As a perennial crop it is less affected by climate change compared to the annual vegetable oil crops. It also helps mitigate climate change as it is a heavy sink of CO₂ in the atmosphere and induce higher rainfall. For example, when over 5,000 hectares were planted to palm oil in the upland and hilly areas of Bohol, the amount of rain in the vicinity where oil palm is grown increased from 1400 to over 1500 mm, bringing benefits to the rice farmers of the island who need more water for their rice fields.

Palm oil is versatile, 80% is used for food, 19% for oligochemistry and 1% for biofuel. Palm oil is a healthy oil known for reducing obesity, the reason why many food processors in USA mix soybean oil with palm oil to help overcome obesity. Palm oil reduces the amount of bad cholesterol and improves human sight due to its high amount of Vitamins A and E. The by-products resulting from the processing of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) to oil is now found useful in the production of quality organic fertilizer and generation of biogas and electricity. The leaves and trunks can be processed cheaply to produce quality papers and biodegradable plastic products such as lunch boxes and other products thereby replacing in the market the non-biodegradable synthetic plastics which are very destructive to the environment. It is predicted that the second generations of biofuel will come from the processing of oil palm biomass – empty fruit bunches, trunks and leaves. The technology is now available and found highly profitable. Considering the high productivity and farm income of oil farm farming is found to be effective in reducing rural poverty. Palm oil industry is gender sensitive; in Nigeria more women than men find employment in the palm oil industry.

At present the Philippines has only 46,608 ha planted to oil palm as compared to 7.5 million ha for Indonesia, 4.5 million ha for Malaysia and 625,000 ha for Thailand. More than 50% of the expansion in these three major palm oil producing countries occurred within the last ten years.

Table 2. Leading countries in the production of palm oil in terms of area and production in 2009.

COUNTRY	PRODUCTION		PERCENT OIL PRODUCTION
	AREA (Ha) (1000)	CRUDE PALM OIL (CPO) PRODUCTION (MT)
1. Indonesia	7,500.00	24,500	49%
2. Malaysia	4,500.00	18,600	37%
3. Thailand	625.00	1,500	4%
4. Nigeria	460.00	850	2%
5. Colombia	390.00	810	2%
6. Others	1,126.00	3,077	6%
TOTAL	14,601.00	49,337	100%