The discursive flexibility of ‘flex crops’: comparing oil palm and jatropha

Abstract

‘Flex crops’ such as corn, oil palm and soy are understood to have multiple, interchangeable uses; they have material flexibility. We propose that discursive flexibility – the ability to strategically switch between discourses to promote an objective – equally shapes the political economy of flex crops, and thereby patterns of agrarian and environmental change. Comparing oil palm and Jatropha curcas, we find that actors who cast oil palm as a multi-scale solution to food and energy insecurity, climate change and (rural) poverty successfully reinforce its high material flexibility. Jatropha's proponents compensate for low material flexibility by positioning the crop as a ‘sustainable’ energy source that achieves both global and local goals. While this paper focuses on discourses that reinforce the oil palm and jatropha projects, understanding the power of discursive maneuvering can also inform efforts to contest them.

Keywords:

• flex crops
• oil palm
• Jatropha curcas
• agrarian and environmental change
• discursive flexibility
• discourse

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the international workshop Problematizing and researching ‘flex crops & commodities': Reframing issues, rethinking actions. The workshop was co-organized by the Transnational Institute (TNI) and the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) on 23 January 2014, at the ISS, in The Hague. The authors are most grateful to TNI for funding the workshop, as well as to the two anonymous reviewers for their meaningful comments. Any remaining errors are our own.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹Broadly understood as a ‘unit of space that has discrete boundaries, shared internal characteristics, and that changes over time and interacts with other similar units' (Gregory et al. 2009, 539).

²Scale ‘comprises the nested (and sometimes not so nested) hierarchy of bounded spaces of differing size' (Jessop 2007, 104–5).

³Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) Technical Director at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 17 October 2013.

⁴RSPO Technical Director at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 17 October 2013.

⁵Executive Director of Guatemala's Oil Palm Growers Guild (GREPALMA) at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 18 October 2013, authors’ translation.

⁶Those are the Colombian Federation of Oil Palm Growers (FEDEPALMA, in its Spanish acronym), the Ecuadorian National Association of Oil Palm Growers (ANCUPA), the Guatemalan Oil Palm Growers Guild (GREPALMA) and the Honduran National Federation of Oil Palm Growers (FENAPALMA).

⁷These include the Colombian FEDEPALMA's President (at the XVII International Conference on Palm Oil in Colombia, 26–28 September 2012), the Ecuadorian ANCUPA's Executive Director, and the Guatemalan GREPALMA's President (at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 18 October 2013), but also the Agriculture Director of World Wide Fund for Nature United States of America (WWF-US), and the Executive Director for Central America and the Caribbean of CropLife, an international organization representing Bayer CropScience, FMC, Syngenta, Basf, Sumitomo Chemical, DuPont, Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto and Arysta LifeScience, both at the 4^th Latin American Conference of the RSPO, Honduras.

⁸Guatemalan GREPALMA's President, at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 17 October 2013, authors’ translation, emphasis added.

⁹At the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 18 October 2013.

¹⁰Guatemalan GREPALMA's Executive Director in Prensa Libre 2013, authors’ translation.

¹¹Guatemalan GREPALMA's President at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 17 October 2013, authors’ translation, emphasis added.

¹²Latin American industry representatives at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 17–18 October 2013, authors’ translation, emphasis added.

¹³Guatemalan GREPALMA's Executive Director at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 18 October 2013, authors’ translation.

¹⁴Colombian FEDEPALMA's President at the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers, Guatemala, 18 October 2013, authors’ translation, emphasis added.

¹⁵Interview in Bogotá, 20 September 2013, authors’ translation.

¹⁶At the 4^th Latin American Conference of the RSPO in Honduras, 8 August 2013, emphasis added.

¹⁷According to a Unilever representative, ‘only 30 out of the 500 palm oil companies or so in Indonesia are RSPO certified’. In meeting on Certification and beyond: solutions for responsible agro-commodity governance, organized by the ‘Ecosystem Alliance’ (IUCN Netherlands, Wetlands International and Both Ends), 30 October 2014, The Hague, The Netherlands.

¹⁸At the meeting Certification and beyond: solutions for responsible agro-commodity governance, organized by the ‘Ecosystem Alliance’, 30 October 2014, The Hague, The Netherlands.

¹⁹President of Colombian FEDEPALMA at the XVIIth International Conference on Palm Oil in Colombia, 26–28 September 2012, authors’ translation.

²⁰Colombian FEDEPALMA's Environmental Leader at the 4^th Latin American Conference of the RSPO, Honduras, 8 August 2013, authors’ translation.

²¹Interview with Colombian FEDEPALMA's Secretary general in Bogotá, 20 September 2013, authors’ translation, emphasis added.

²²Interview with the Oil Palm Programme Director of the Government of Guatemala, in Guatemala City, 21 September 2009.

²³Slogan of the First Latin American Conference of Oil Palm Growers held in Antigua, Guatemala, 17–18 October 2013, authors’ translation.

²⁴Interview with the Biofuels Coordinator of the Sustainable Development Vice-Ministry, Guatemalan Ministry of Energy and Mines, Guatemala City, 21 May 2008, and with the National Coordinator for Biofuels Development of the National Planning Department of the Colombian government, Bogota, 2 July 2008.

²⁵Interview with Colombian FEDEPALMA's Secretary general in Bogotá, 20 September 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol Hunsberger

Carol Hunsberger is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Email: [email protected]

Alberto Alonso-Fradejas

Alberto Alonso-Fradejas is a PhD candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Netherlands, a research associate of the Transnational Institute (TNI) and a fellow of the Guatemalan Institute of Agrarian and Rural Studies (IDEAR). Email: [email protected]