Unravelling the geopolitics of palm oil and deforestation

Roda Jean-Marc. 2020. Unravelling the geopolitics of palm oil and deforestation. In : Virtual IPOSC Module 2 : Renewable energy, climate change and food security. Sarafhana Dollah (ed.), Nursabrina Mohd Hayat (ed.). MPOC. Selangor : MPOC, 7 p. International Palm Oil Sustainability Conference 2020 (IPOSC 2020). 6, Kuala Lumpur, Malaisie, 12 Octobre 2020/16 Octobre 2020.

Matériel d'accompagnement : 1 diaporama (55 vues)

Résumé : This presentation and talk explain the geopolitic and economic forces that are behind the controversies on palm oil and deforestation. It brings nuances to the black and white pictures propagated that, too often, saturates media and civil society opinions. Seven strategic features shape the complexity of the issue. The first is the generic, global, and inexorable evolution of food security and diet change. With the demographics of emerging countries and the urbanisation of the world, they are the main forces fuelling the global demand for more vegetable oil and cheaper vegetable oil. The second strategic feature is a world race to acquire, control, and manage land that is necessary to grow food and commodities for this demand. In this context, the corporate expertise about a vegetable oil that needs less space to produce more, in various uncertain tropical economies, is a stake that challenges other established agricultural commodities supremacies. The third strategic feature is the role of Europe in what appears to be a global game of influence, and of competing production systems. The fourth strategic element is the question of deforestation. Oil palm plantations played a role in deforestation, but much less than expected, and following past or quickly vanishing dynamics. When preventing real deforestation is the main target, palm-oil trade regulation has little chances to play a significant role. The fifth strategic feature is the question of bioenergy in the producing countries, and it has strong economic and energy independence grounds. The sixth strategic feature is where the added value takes place, and only the future will say if western countries will keep their advance in the strategic expertise that controls the upper echelons of the added value scale. The seventh and concluding strategic feature is the fact that behind the oil palm story, major productions systems or capitalist models that are finally very different, confront their version of sustainability.

Mots-clés libres : Deforestation, Oil Palm, Palm oil, Diet change, Food Security, Urbanisation, Income, Vegetable oil, Agribusiness, Financialisation, Productivity, European Union, Protectionism, Policy, Geopolitics, Trade, Regulation, Added Value, Value chain, Production system

Auteurs et affiliations

• Roda Jean-Marc, CIRAD-ES-UPR Forêts et sociétés (MYS) ORCID: 0000-0002-3967-5297

Source : Cirad-Agritrop (https://agritrop.cirad.fr/596739/)

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