Difficulties for smallholders
The research also bears out the reluctance of oil palm growers in Indonesia to take on sustainability commitments and certification standards.
The basic and overarching problem is simple: cost. This is now a generally accepted point in the debate. Certification is expensive, and small farmers can’t afford it without assistance from aid agencies or other groups.
Failing that, more NGOs have called for greater certification by the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). The problem there is that demand for, and uptake of, RSPO-certified palm oil is approximately 50%.
Why is uptake so low? First, there is almost zero consumer demand, at least in some parts of Europe. Second, because the demand is not there; there is no premium that can be offered to producers; so there is zero incentive for small farmers to sign up to certification initiatives such as that of RSPO.
What few people have suggested is that there should be attempts to make certification cheaper. It could be argued that some western companies are already attempting this via support for small farmer initiatives. But this misses the point, as these schemes only serve western markets.
Cost-effective solution
There is a better way: national standards. The Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) standard is the best example of this. It implements government sustainability policy consistent with broader national sustainability goals. It is cost-effective because it has to be. It also articulates the balance between social, economic and environmental concerns.
One of the key differences between RSPO and conventional international standards is that the RSPO is a private body which is not subjected to legislative checks and balances. As a body, it effectively decides who is and isn’t accredited to audit a standard, while developing the standard itself. That is not how standards are formed or work in practice.
Standards development and accreditation are distinct and separate processes at both national and international levels. This is why, for example, a tyre maker can make tyres according to an official standard without having to be a member of a tyre-producing body.
So, producers don’t have to pay membership fees; they only pay audit fees. It also means that auditors can be competitive without cutting corners, as they need to maintain their credibility via a separate accreditation process.
But one of the reasons that NGOs remain wedded to the RSPO is that it is weighted towards western interests.
The CIFOR report states:
‘The majority of motions submitted by the growers target the governance of [the] RSPO, generally requesting better representation of their needs. Private sustainability standards, with their origins or leadership in Europe or America, may be perceived as a new manifestation of western control, as reported by four of our key informants.’
One of the problems with the western environmental movement is that it has taken on a moral position that is generally fixed.
CIFOR’s report on sustainability demonstrates that if the movement is genuinely interested in improving environmental outcomes, it needs to dispense with the notion that tougher, more expensive standards are always better.
It needs to accept that solutions developed on the ground – such as the MSPO standard – will provide an improvement. And that any improvement is better than no improvement.
MPOC
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