My thoughts after visiting a Palm Oil plantation in Colombia

Palm Oil Plantation (Isabel Luotto 2017, Colombia)

Nowadays where I am from there is nothing scarier than the words Palm Oil written on a food label. Palm Oil is so scary here in Italy, that one time during a Halloween costume party a guy happened to have the dreadful idea to dress up as this nightmare inducing fat. “How do you dress up as palm oil?” You might be asking. Well, his costume consisted in nothing more than black pants, a black t-shirt and a sign over his shoulders, saying: “PALM OIL” Terrifying and brilliant!

In my family, there is no doubt about it: palm oil is poison. My own mother, who swung herself up on the not-hydrogenated-fats-train, is now the matter of fact avoiding this cheap replacement for hydrogenated fats, religiously. Therefore, when I got to know that I would have been spending an entire week in a palm oil farm in Colombia, I was more than intrigued.  

Palm Oil Trees and Calf that had been born the day before we arrived (Isabel Luotto 2017, Colombia)

First of all the owners of the farm were my boyfriend’s uncles, regular honest, hardworking folks that proved to be very welcoming and eager to share their knowledge of the land. I learned that the palm oil tree is an incredibly productive plant, as with the right conditions it can produce 20 tons of fruits per hectare. In Malaysia where the climate is more suitable, it can produce up to 30 tons. To put this into perspective, olive trees can only amount to 7 tons of olives per hectare. Additionally, palm oil is incredibly profitable since its uses are widespread and found in cosmetics, the food industries, biofuel, animal feed etc.

Palm Oil fruit (https://goo.gl/images/8xFn8X)

Nevertheless, what does it mean to produce palm oil in Colombia, the second richest biodiverse country in the world? The highest production of palm oil is found in the Llanos Orientales of Colombia. This region is home to my boyfriend’s uncles and unique creatures, such as the anteater, the capybara and the giant armadillo. The area provides for a savannah like ecosystem composed of grasslands and woodlands, just like the one where gazelles and lions roam in Africa. Colombia is the largest palm oil producer in the Americas and the country dedicated around 500.000 hectares (two full Luxemburgs) to the production of palm oil. Palm trees are drastically different from grasslands and some animals such as the anteater and armadillo are affected negatively. Furthermore, several bird species cannot assimilate in the new alien habitat. Nonetheless, the production area is supposed to double by 2020 in response to the increase in demand for biofuel.

Do we really need Colombian palm oil? Well it depends on who we are asking. It is without a doubt a profitable product that provides high yields out of little land. The industries and the Colombian government like it, and the 140.000 people that have some sort of employment out of it, probably like it, too. The Colombian people deserve the right to see their country flourish economically (environment conscious people bear with me), but it is clearly vital that there needs to be a compromise here. And this is the challenge and the inner conflict that this trip has made me face.

Parrot, Anteater and Tucano in Bioparque Los Ocarros in Villavicencio (Isabel Luotto 2017, Colombia) 

As my mother and many more people in countries like Italy and Germany are proving, we can in fact live without it to a certain extent. However, we still need this oil due to the fact that the demand for biofuel is growing and a great amount of cosmetics and products, we would not necessarily associate with palm oil, are produced cheaply because of it. Did you know that mouthwash can contain palm oil?! But we the consumers that have the monetary privilege to make conscious decisions can help diminish the impact of palm oil plantations on fragile habitats such as the savannah of Colombia.

Products containing palm oil (https://goo.gl/images/ZpyYEz)

We cannot stop the demand for it, but at least we can avoid its spread to intolerable levels. So yes mom, keep up the good work! Furthermore, I strongly believe there is a need for research in respect to the concept of “sustainable palm oil”. This product will not disappear out of sheer good will, so the least we can do is invest and develop ways to make the already existing and future plantations less harmful for the environment. More studies about the effect on the local flora and fauna should be performed. Rice has already been proven to have a lesser impact on the savannah of Colombia due to the fact that it provides a grassland habitat, therefore its replacement with palm trees should be avoided.

Composition of Nutella, 20% Palm oil (https://goo.gl/images/AJXiSM)

The road that combines sustainability to agriculture is a rocky one, especially when we are talking about a global demand for a product. The more anonymous the product becomes, the more numb we become to its effects. Therefore, it is important to bear in mind that a product that decreases poverty in rural areas of Colombia through employment, but that is harmful for the environment, needs to be talked about and studied without polarizing each side. In other words, let’s not make it that scary that people dress up as palm oil for Halloween! The challenge between the environment and profitable agriculture, is difficult, but at the same time exciting, and this is the reason why I have decided to pursue the study of agro-environmental sciences.

Young palm trees intercropped with leguminous plants to lower the need for fertilization (Isabel Luotto 2017, Colombia)