MARKET DEVELOPMENT
Brazil Could Expand Oil-Palm Plantations Sustainably
Brazil Could Expand Oil-Palm Plantations Sustainably
03/06/2015 (environmentalresearchweb) - Right now, Brazil has some difficult decisions to make about land use. One of the most hotly debated topics is whether oil-palm plantations should be allowed to expand. Would more oil palm be an environmental disaster? Now, a study weighs up the risks and opportunities. The scientists found that with the right kind of regulations, oil palm could be farmed sustainably and production increased significantly, potentially enabling Brazil to supply 10% of global diesel demand.
Today, there are 18-million hectares of oil-palm plantations in the tropics – an area the size of Cambodia. More than 10 million of these hectares used to be virgin tropical forest, supporting extraordinary biodiversity and storing vast amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. But this hugely versatile plant – used by the food industry, for building materials, and as a biofuel, to name just a few uses – is super-productive, creating 10 times as much oil per hectare of land as soybean. Currently, oil-palm plantations account for just 7% of the land devoted to vegetable-oil crops, but they produce 39% of vegetable oil. Is oil palm really the bad boy that it is often made out to be?
Oskar Englund from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and colleagues, have carried out a high-resolution modelling study to assess the impact that oil-palm expansion might have in Brazil. Currently, Brazil has 0.1 Mha of oil-palm plantation, but previous studies have shown that approximately half of Brazil's land (565 Mha) could support the crop. Much of this area is forested, but there are also significant tracts of deforested land, for example cattle pastures, that could be converted to oil-palm plantation.
Using their model, Englund and the team calculated the net present value of establishing new oil-palm plantations under 27 different energy-policy and infrastructure scenarios. Oil-palm plantations would be profitable across extensive areas of land, they found, but much of the transition would involve removing native vegetation, producing large greenhouse-gas emissions from land-use change and impacting biodiversity. However, they also discovered that between 40 and 60 Mha of land could be converted to oil-palm plantation without causing extensive land-use change emissions, or destroying protected areas.
"Almost all of this land is presently agriculture, so the environmental impacts would come from the shift from the earlier agricultural activity, cattle ranching, for example, to oil-palm production, which in many situations can be positive," explained Englund. If all 60 Mha of this land was converted to oil-palm production, Brazil would become self-sufficient in diesel fuel, and would supply around 10% of the global diesel demand. The findings are published in Environmental Research Letters (ERL).
However, this kind of expansion of oil-palm production could have severe negative consequences if not managed appropriately. "It requires that agricultural activities (primarily cattle ranching) [are] generally intensified, so that the land needed for oil palm becomes available without displacing existing agricultural activities elsewhere," said Englund.
Today, there are 18-million hectares of oil-palm plantations in the tropics – an area the size of Cambodia. More than 10 million of these hectares used to be virgin tropical forest, supporting extraordinary biodiversity and storing vast amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide. But this hugely versatile plant – used by the food industry, for building materials, and as a biofuel, to name just a few uses – is super-productive, creating 10 times as much oil per hectare of land as soybean. Currently, oil-palm plantations account for just 7% of the land devoted to vegetable-oil crops, but they produce 39% of vegetable oil. Is oil palm really the bad boy that it is often made out to be?
Oskar Englund from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, and colleagues, have carried out a high-resolution modelling study to assess the impact that oil-palm expansion might have in Brazil. Currently, Brazil has 0.1 Mha of oil-palm plantation, but previous studies have shown that approximately half of Brazil's land (565 Mha) could support the crop. Much of this area is forested, but there are also significant tracts of deforested land, for example cattle pastures, that could be converted to oil-palm plantation.
Using their model, Englund and the team calculated the net present value of establishing new oil-palm plantations under 27 different energy-policy and infrastructure scenarios. Oil-palm plantations would be profitable across extensive areas of land, they found, but much of the transition would involve removing native vegetation, producing large greenhouse-gas emissions from land-use change and impacting biodiversity. However, they also discovered that between 40 and 60 Mha of land could be converted to oil-palm plantation without causing extensive land-use change emissions, or destroying protected areas.
"Almost all of this land is presently agriculture, so the environmental impacts would come from the shift from the earlier agricultural activity, cattle ranching, for example, to oil-palm production, which in many situations can be positive," explained Englund. If all 60 Mha of this land was converted to oil-palm production, Brazil would become self-sufficient in diesel fuel, and would supply around 10% of the global diesel demand. The findings are published in Environmental Research Letters (ERL).
However, this kind of expansion of oil-palm production could have severe negative consequences if not managed appropriately. "It requires that agricultural activities (primarily cattle ranching) [are] generally intensified, so that the land needed for oil palm becomes available without displacing existing agricultural activities elsewhere," said Englund.