Linking the transformation of production structures to a multidimensional sustainability assessment grid of smallholders’ oil palm plantations

Abstract

Oil palm cultivation has become emblematic of the trade-off between development and conservation that growers have to face in the context of global changes. This challenge between economic growth and environmental issues and the growing public debate regarding palm oil development and use require improving data availability to avoid ideological positions. The paper is a contribution towards the establishment of a multidimensional analysis grid to assess the sustainability of palm oil production based on an empirical survey with two levels: (i) holding and (ii) plot. We first aimed to present our approach based on World Agricultural Watch methodological framework. The empirical data were collected in Kampar District, Riau province, at holding level including one to two oil palm plots showing contrasted levels of management (semi-managed and independent). Our first objective was to capture the global rationale of the holdings, to define a typology that would go beyond the usual size-based classification. After assessing the place and role of palm oil production within the household economy, we then tested a set of three-dimensional indicators (i.e. social, economic and environmental) to assess globally the impacts of oil palm development through smallholder development. In a region where oil palm cultivation tends to standardise the landscape, overwhelm the local economy and polarise the households’ activity systems, we could identify a significant heterogeneity at holding and household levels. However, the strengthening of our methodology would require a larger sample.

Keywords:

• oil palm
• smallholders
• households’ strategies
• Sumatra

Acknowledgements

They are also very grateful to PT SMART Tbk and Cifor Indonesia for helping with the field work logistics, and to Karine Lé and Pak A. M. Cahyadi Kurniawan for field data collection. Finally, the authors want to thank Dr Sylvain Perret, Dr Sylvain Rafflegeau and Dr Claude Jannot from Cirad, as well as Dr Patrice Levang from IRD and Cifor for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Notes

1. RSPO definition of smallholders: farmers growing palm oil, sometimes along with subsistence production of other crops, where the family provides the majority of labour and the farm provides the principal source of income, and where the planted area of oil palm is usually below 50 ha in size [Definition from: RSPO Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Palm Oil Production – October 2007].

2. At world level, holding farming less than 2 ha accounts for around 85% of all holdings and in this the share of Asia accounts for more than two-thirds (HLPE 2013).

3. Taken from www.lemoci.com accessed on the 2 February 2014.

4. This point has to be taken carefully since this influence could be less in areas with a lower influence of NES scheme. So from a methodological perspective, we need to keep our questionnaire as such to be able to capture diversification whenever useful (in areas with lower NES influence).

5. It can also be linked to the limited size of our sample.

6. By ‘robust trajectories’ we mean a limited number of types of trajectories that would be valid for a large number of holdings represented by a reduced core set of structural indicators as identified in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

The authors want to thank the French National Research Agency (ANR) which supports the SPOP project (http://spop.cirad.fr/) within the frame of the Agrobiosphere programme.