inator wrote:
We could also just say that we avoid conflict palm oil (if we reach the conclusion that that's the best thing to do as opposed to avoiding all palm oil). If the meat eater lacks trust in the difference between the two categories of oil, we can discuss that issue separately in more detail.
If there were a reliable way to do that, that could be viable. I don't feel capable of adopting such a burden of proof to defend current systems.
It's much easier just to avoid it.
So, I think the argument is pretty much academic. Like the concept of cruelty free eggs and milk from hypothetical super-humane no-kill sanctuary-like farms.
Systems in place have a long way to come before that will be a strong argument, and I don't necessarily think they'll ever get there (I think biotechnology will beat them to the punch, if it's even possible for them to get there).
inator wrote:
True, but say I want to buy peanut butter. From a health perspective, I'd rather get the one with some palm oil in it than the one with hydrogenated oils.
Partially hydrogenated oils which are high in trans-fats are being phased out.
There are options both with no added oils (just peanuts and salt), and there are options with
fully hydrogenated oil.
So, the choice is between NO added fat, trans fat added, saturated fat added from fully hydrogenated oils, or saturated fat added from palm oil.
I've seen all of those options side by side in the peanut butter section of large grocery chains. Although maybe not trans fat, since that's being phased out. That's getting harder to find.
Consumers have already spoken, but in the U.S. the FDA is actually banning partially hydrogenated oils. They'll be phased out in the next two years.
inator wrote:
Or genetically modified palms that live longer than the typical lifespan, which would reduce the need for removal and replanting of trees and increase the frequency of harvests.
That could help too. Is somebody working on this?
inator wrote:
brimstoneSalad wrote:Or, companies switching to fully hydrogenated oils from corn, soybean, cottonseed, etc.
With similar negative health effects and lower yields.
They aren't just yielding oil and then throwing away the rest of the crop, though. Oil is a byproduct from most of these industries.
Oilpalm primarily yields oil.
You can probably guess that cottonseed oil is a biproduct of cotton farming (along with feedstock left over after the cotton fiber and the oil are removed).
Likewise, for corn and soybeans, there's a larger yield of protein and starch. For corn, once the oil is pressed, the high starch 'waste' can be used as feedstock for ethanol production, and then a high protein yeast-corn substance is produced.
Industry wastes very little. Oilpalm just produces little else of value aside from the oil.
inator wrote:
brimstoneSalad wrote:Or we should just find ways to make food without so much saturated fat.
That would be nice.
I saw some sandwich cookies (non-name brand Oreo) that were made with canola oil (non-hydrogenated) instead of palm. I think food scientists are working on it. This is the kind of effort we should really support, over alternative saturated fats. We'll all be better off in the long run getting palm oil out of our diets.
inator wrote:
Well not necessarily. Current average palm oil yields are well below the industry best,
That's an important issue. IF we could manage to double yield through better practices, the best way to encourage those persistent practices was to buy the product/pay more for it (above market rate) and track them, AND in doing so we only considered the increase in yield to be 'sustainable' rather than the whole thing, there might be an argument there.
Farmers are already incentivized to increase their yields though, that already doubles their income. What they probably need is upfront investment, not the promise of greater returns on their investments when they don't have the money to put into it anyway. Offering to pay them a little more later after they go 'sustainable' doesn't necessarily help much. It's particularly unhelpful when we force them to spend a substantial amount of that money on "fair trade" practices for their workers. I'm skeptical of the increased margins for the farmers themselves, and I don't think that's necessarily useful.
inator wrote:
That doesn't just refer to land that has already been destroyed, but also non-forest land that does not have any community use, has low wildlife value and little carbon stored. Growing palms on these open areas could actually offer net carbon savings.
How much of that land is there, and why aren't we exploiting that land now exclusively instead of forest?
I suspect it has to do with upfront cost, and greater difficulty of growing oilpalms on that land.
If it's fundamentally more expensive to grow oilpalms on that land and it couldn't be dumped into the normal oil market due to higher cost of production, that could solve the fungibility issue with respect to Asian consumers. But is that really going to be enough to satisfy demand for sustainable palm oil? Or do consumers after Sustainable palm oil just run out of it and start buying unsustainable palm oil labeled sustainable as a marketing gimmick (like the current racket) again?
Also, it sounds like a lot of this expansion is into cattle grazing land. What's the cost of that? I doubt people are eating less meat. Maybe they're just tearing down or burning down more virgin forest somewhere else to graze cattle or grow soybeans to feed to cattle after losing this land to oilpalm.
Even the land shuffling could be a shell game.
inator wrote:
For example Brazil has been pretty succesfull at increasing agricultural productivity on existing farmland by increasing access to rural credit tied to compliance with environmental regulation.
That sounds good, but does that have anything to do with us as ethical consumers?
Farmers and countries are already incentivized to do this in the current market.
inator wrote:
A similar model could be used in Indonesia, doubled by a higher demand for 'sustainable' palm oil brands that establish strong relationships with their suppliers and incentivize them to increase their yields on non-forest lands.
It sounds like these things are being done either way, and that we can apply social and political pressure without increasing overall demand for palm oil (for all the good said pressure does, I think a boycott does more to just stop the industry's expansion for our sake).
The argument for the lesser evil of supposedly 'sustainable' palm sounds very much like the argument for buying "happy meat" to promote "better" animal agriculture. It's possibly based on the idea that the consumer doesn't get a seat at the table unless he or she is buying in, as though that seat means anything (if you're buying in, the industry already has your money and you're indicating satisfaction with the practice).
We have the choice to just opt out entirely, and I don't think there's any reason to believe that't not better.
If only the increase in yield were considered sustainable (instead of the whole yield), and only for a limited time, and the premium on sustainable oil funded loan programs (so they actually helped increase supply of standard market palm oil), that might be something else.
But if these practices aren't competitive, they aren't going to gain ground without subsidization, and I don't see that being very effective altruism.
inator wrote:
This would in turn make sustainable palm oil more readily available and may shift some conflict palm oil consumers to buying sustainable palm oil instead (which could be very helpful IF the fungibility problem is resolved by my arguments above).
Or we can demand products without palm oil, which will also make those products more readily available.
I don't think the vast majority of consumers are going to switch unless it's cheaper.
There's no nutritional reason we should be eating the stuff.
The only thing that would really make it a true good was if it was definitively increasing the supply of standard palm oil. And since increasing that supply is a matter of loans and education, not purchases (which increases the demand instead), there's no reason to buy it. If we wanted to, we could contribute to loan programs and sustainability without buying, and it would do a lot more good (although I question the cost/benefit there).
Otherwise, it's like adding an arbitrary tax to diamond purchases, for example, to save lives and offset the blood cost of diamonds. The good is not inherently related to the purchase. It's more of an indulgence payment in attempt at recompense.
inator wrote:
But sure, reducing total demand for all oils is the safest route.
For all palm oil, at least. We do need to eat, and non-tropical oils are a good option nutritionally. Particularly healthy ones like canola, which is mostly grown in Canada and China. (
http://www.research.bayer.com/en/canola.aspx )
Even olive oil is pretty good, in terms of it's high yield of monounsaturated fats.
inator wrote:
Similar to palm oil, suitable open land is not always chosen for these crops either. See the connection between soybean crops and the loss of ecosystems in Latin America. While the majority of those crops is fed to farmed animals, we get the same problem of fungibility.
We have to eat something, and we need a protein source. Soybeans are far more efficient for that purpose, particularly if we aren't feeding them to animals (which veganism precludes).
It's not a great comparison, since that actually provides something much more valuable to human beings than saturated fat.
The combination of the high environmental cost and low human value are what make palm oil a bad wager.
inator wrote:
Switching from Any extra demand has the potential to result in more deforestation if not managed correctly. Except the yield of soybean crops is lower --> more land needed.
For oil, not for protein and other yield. Most of these crops give us many things at once.
Soybeans in particular hold much more value in their meal after oil extraction than the oil itself.
With each ton of crude soybean oil, approximately 4.5 tons of soybean oil meal with a protein content of about 44% are produced. For each ton of soybeans processed, the commercial value of the meal obtained usually exceeds that of the oil . Thus, soybean oil meal cannot be considered a by-product of the oil manufacture. The soybean is, in this respect, an exception among oilseeds.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0532e/t0532e02.htm
You have to factor in other products of the plant and time from seed to harvest, and other crops that can be grown on the same land in different seasons.
World Bank wrote:
Other advantages of palm oil over oil seeds include
energy efficiency through utilization of its own
biomass as fuel for power and steam generation
in palm oil mills, and the lowest requirement for
inputs of fertilizers and pesticides.
You can do that with almost any crop. The difference with something like soybeans is that the rest of the bean biomass is actually valuable as a product. You can use the stems and leaves, though there's not much left to them.
Corn stover, as it's called, probably has even more potential as biofuel feedstock:
https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2015/Q4/purdue-study-shows-potential-for-growth-in-biofuels-from-corn-stover.html
I'm not sure where the article sourced the other claim. It says:
10 Teoh, C. H. 2004. ―Selling the Green Palm Oil Advantage?‖
Oil Palm Industry Economic Journal 4: 1.
Maybe you can find the link, I have to go pretty soon and a quick search didn't take me to anything definitive.
Perennial agriculture does have some advantages with respect to inputs, but I'd expect the same from olive trees, and soybeans are actually nitrogen fixing. Crop rotation is another good way to reduce inputs.