Opinion: Working with farmers to achieve a sustainable palm oil process

Since the late 1990s, many reports and articles have criticized the sustainability and ethical practices of palm oil. Its track record certainly isn’t squeaky-clean when it comes to sustainability, but placing blame on an entire industry is never the best way to fix a systemic problem.

It also does not take into account the millions of people working along the value chain who depend on this crop for their livelihoods. With decades of experience working in plantations alongside growers and their communities, I’ve seen just how fundamentally the livelihood of these communities depends on the palm oil business.

The all-encompassing nature of the industry requires us to engage not only the smallholder farmers that make up the majority of palm oil growers, but the entire community. Long-term sustainability for this industry will be impossible without their full support.

Today’s reality for palm oil is vastly different than 10 or even five years ago, and huge strides have been made toward ensuring the crop’s sustainability, but how do we continue to implement change for good?

Getting the farmers onboard

For farming communities to support sustainable farming practices, farmers need to first understand the alternatives to traditional farming methods and why these methods are better for their crops, communities, and livelihoods. For hundreds of years, farmers have been relying on burning to clear land and using ashes as fertilizers. It’s cheap, easily accessible, and it works.

But the “slash-and-burn” method is unsustainable and harmful for the environment, hence it is the responsibility of agriculture companies like Golden Agri-Resources to educate the farming community on why a change in mindset will benefit them in the long term. The challenge is convincing smallholder farmers, who have been farming the way their fathers taught them, that these traditional practices will have severe consequences to their crop’s productivity and yield.

Advocating for change in farmers’ behavior can seem like an impossible task. Many of these farmers living around our concessions in Indonesia do not grow oil palm, but their role in protecting the plantation and forested areas surrounding it are just as important.

We take it upon ourselves to talk to these farmers and answer their questions, such as how this will impact their harvest, is it going to cost them more, and who can produce be sold to?

We seek to address these questions directly by teaching these farmers how to grow organic vegetables that provide the community with added food security, a reduced expenditure on food, and additional income from the sale of surplus crops.  

Thinking differently for the next generation

After discussing fire and its negative connection with palm oil production, it is important to also address the importance of peatlands. Peat is important for the environment as it stores huge amounts of carbon. In Indonesia, millions of people live in or are adjacent to peat and depend on the land for fishing, aquaculture, and other agriculture activities. This can sometimes lead to the drainage and decomposition of peatlands, resulting in serious problems for both the environment and communities in the long term.

Recognizing the importance of peat and the urgent need for its preservation, a commitment has to be made by the industry not to open and convert additional peatland into palm oil plantations.

Restoring degraded peatland is a huge project. While GAR has made great strides in preserving forests, we also realize that more industry players and institutions need to participate in order for the impact to reach scale and outcome to be sustained. This is where engaging the next generation of industry leaders will help.

With over 45 percent of Indonesia’s population living in rural areas, access to education can pose a huge challenge. Out of the belief that every child deserves one, we support more than 230 schools across our plantations catered to children of different age groups.

We are also providing scholarships to students to encourage them to move into higher education. As part of our commitment to unlocking young children’s potential, we need to do more to improve the level of education in rural communities and raise awareness of the diversity of professions that the palm oil industry can provide. These students may well become the next sustainability officers, farmer trainers, agronomists, and chefs that will demand a more sustainable industry for generations to come.  

Progress is being made every day, but there is always more to be done. As someone with deep roots in the plantation business, I believe that the communities living around these estates hold the key to our future.

While challenges remain, seeing farmers adopt best practices and children from rural communities reach their educational potential, I am regularly inspired and reminded of what we can achieve.

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