Palm Oil Packed in All Groceries Stalls

Dani Rahadian P Hidayat

There are several groceries store around my home, where there some neighbor has been opening up wet vegetable stalls, national mini market retailer chains such as Alfamart and Indomaret or simply a home snack and goodies stalls. They serve the daily consumption need of surrounding neighborhood where similar business activities have been erected in an around dense population a big municipalities in Indonesia such as East Jakarta with the population density reaches 16,924 person / km2 or  Depok West java 10,255 person / km2.

Instant noodles, biscuits, cosmetics, and other goodies that you can name it. The all packed in the shelves ready to be picked up and consumed. It is society's daily economic activities supported by routine consumption. There would be a large number of ingredients to make such food and goodies over time.

Agriculture, husbandry, aquaculture is among the sources of the raw material. Yet, fat and oil are the outweigh ingredient to make most of these foods and cosmetics products. Cost is one of the most crucial considerations when the investor producing these materials. Which product sources underpinned that interest?

Vegetable oil considered most efficient since it can be harvested massively, intensively, and renewable. There are some commodities such as palm oil, soybean, corn, and others. However, palm oil is considered as the most efficient and versatile oil. The palm oil production can reach 3 to 4 times other vegetable oil.

Such production rates have attracted many manufactures to sources palm oil as their main ingredient. Besides the more efficient, the palm oil has several superiorities compare with their competitors in specific products such as peanut butter or chocolate jam. It has made palm oil has become one of the favorite choices.            

The palm oil is being produced by either big or small growers. The plantation is mostly located in several islands namely Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Papua were categorized as some of the largest islands in Indonesia. There are plenty of lands available to accommodate large oil palm plantation development although these plantation expansions have raised some concern regarding environmental disturbances.

Those island has been well known as the last remaining natural forest reserves for decades. Unfortunately, those forest areas have been gradually depleted due to expansion and conversion. The biodiversity losses have become a nightmare from this process.

The rich biodiversity natural forest losses have induced the evaporation of carbon to the atmosphere and created a climate change in the end. This has led to the fear of future catastrophic among people and deems the conversion of existing natural forest as one of the triggered. However, it is whether just the vilified story has been made or factual prove. Since some smear stories and also real ground photos have been both taken massively.

Anyhow, there is some initiative to meet a win-win result that has been elaborated. These formed as verifiable certification scheme. Named them such Roundtable Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), International Sustainable Carbon & Certification (ISCC) or even national Indonesia Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO). They required the oil palm growers complying with their set standard, where it covers environmental, social, and economic aspects.

The standard was being set either by the multi-stakeholder working group and it is becoming a normative approach standard (RSPO) or government coercive certification scheme (ISPO and ISCC).   Those sustainability standard responsibilities must be transferred along with the supply chain actors. Nevertheless, it should be bear from the very bottom of upstream such as the smallholder farmers, then it is flowing through the groove of supply chains channel until it reached the downstream actant.

The smallholder farmers should implement environmentally sound practices including no deforestation acts, respect for indigenous or local aspects also to improve their agriculture practices. It was wrapped up in requirement standards. These sustainable practices as part of certification criteria applied to the smallholder farmers.

The sustainable cycle process will finally end up at some of the groceries stall and franchise mini markets around my home. Although, we rarely hear or sees if there are some eco-sensitive customers in Indonesia. It seems that there are more price-sensitive consumers in developing nations such as here. Although, it will target some developed countries market at least for this point in time. However, we are expecting it will be packed toward sustainability product consumers given the rise in the future.