Fractured/Earth

India has embarked on a new push for oil palm cultivation in northeast India. Some of the attendant stakes are well known. Oil palm supporters point at India’s burgeoning edible oils import bill. With domestic oilseed production staying low, imports now meet 65-70% of India’s edible oil demand. It’s an expensive indulgence. Between October 2022 and October 2023, India’s edible oil import bill stood at ₹138,000 crore. Three-fifths of that—9.79 million metric tonnes—was palm oil, mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia. Growing oil palm locally, say supporters, can help India reduce that import bill.

The counterpoint to these arguments is also well known. Given its thirst for water, oil palm is expected to exacerbate local water shortages. It also weakens soil health. As studies have shown, oil palm plantations have the lowest biodiversity—lower than even teak plantations, and far lower than the traditional jhum landscapes. Forest bird abundance in the jhum cultivation landscape was similar to that in a rainforest, on average 304% higher than in oil palm plantations, biologists have found.

There is also the question of forest loss. Oil palm is mostly grown in areas that get lots of rain. Consequently, in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Cameroon, where governments cleared forests and planted oil palm, the plant has triggered massive deforestation, destroying habitats of endangered species like orangutans and reducing planetary resilience to climate change.

Even as this debate plays on, CarbonCopy heard about a puzzling new dimension to oil palm cultivation in North East India—large farmers seem to be more interested in the plantation crop than smallholders.

That was the prologue to our two-part series on how oil palm plantations are changing land relations in the north east. Read part one here, and part two here.

PS: 2023 is over. The year saw me file ten worthwhile reports (there were some commentaries, etc, which I am not going to count). We started with the odd buyers of Jet Airways; moved to NCLT where a similar trend of value destruction and unknown buyers is visible; flagged a paradox where MFIs’ numbers are healthy even as rural India struggles post covid, suggesting the industry is back to coercive collections; thence to Adani’s acquisition template; India’s search for critical minerals; its embrace of untested nuclear power; the collapse of Teesta III; the oil palm push in the north east; the decimation of India’s EIA regime; and one report on Tellurian. Of these, two are yet to be published.
Now to do a better job in 2024.