Hypocrisy or enlightenment: Oil palm, coconut and the Department of Agriculture
05/03/2026 (The Manila Times) - THE Philippine government’s push to subsidize oil palm, particularly in Mindanao and Palawan, is bad news all around.
The 2026 budget for palm oil is a low P67 million this year. Government wants it to fly to a high P1.2 billion next year.
The weary argument of the Agriculture department centers on their being motivated by a sincere desire to increase agricultural income and reduce reliance on both legally imported and illegally smuggled palm oil, this latter masquerading as animal feed and ending up as cooking oil in your favorite hamburger stand.
Taking a page from our Southeast Asian neighbors who are now on the retreat in the production of palm oil because of a decidedly rejectionist and environmentally conscious world market, the Philippine government, late-as-usual, celebrates the antiquated position of having discovered at last a higher-yielding, more profitable alternative to traditional coconut farming.
The government has two ears. In this one ear it hears that oil palm can be grown on underutilized or idle lands in Mindanao and thus turn unproductive areas into profitable plantations.
It hears that the industry might generate direct employment of up to 15,000 workers and thus provide steady wages in rural areas. It is a perennial crop, after all, with a productive lifespan of about half the coconut palm.
With this other ear it heard but now refuses to hear, for one reason or another, that the conversion of natural vegetation to monoculture plantations, as in oil palm, definitely reduces biodiversity.
It heard but now refuses to hear that these plantations exacerbate soil erosion, leading to risks of flooding (“flood control,” anyone?) and landslides, particularly in Mindanao.
It heard but now refuses to hear the noise and cries associated with land use conflicts and land grabbing, particularly in the ancestral domain of Indigenous peoples.
It cannot hear the concerns that the conversion of food-producing land (rice and corn fields) into plantations of oil palm poses grave risks to local food security.
In an unabashedly hypocritical stance, government, while subsidizing the importation of food (rice) in the millions upon millions of metric tons, would now shed crocodile tears over the million-plus importation of palm oil which, therefore, they must assuage by getting the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) to be production supervisor.
It is the same PCA which was made to assure the nation that they have the formula to double the income of coconut farmers through its various productivity and social service programs. Does the government not believe in its own PCA? Why, then, use its present low productivity as an argument to shift to oil palm?
Yes, the government heard but now refuses to hear that the industry structure favors large-scale, often foreign corporations (our Southeast Asian neighbors’), over smallholder farmers, who may become heavily indebted or dependent on these firms.
It heard with this other ear but now refuses to hear that the intensive use of pesticides and fertilizers (glyphosate, paraquat) poses grave risks of polluting local watersheds and water sources, and thus threatens the health of local communities.
It heard but now refuses to hear and see that the industry has been associated with exploitative practices, low wages, and the disappearance of land rights and precarious working conditions for farmworkers.