- A new study in Indonesia’s palm oil capital, Riau, has found that proximity to roads and processing plants is a key factor in determining whether smallholder farmers expand their cultivation into peatland forests.
- This is due to the need to quickly transport freshly harvested palm fruits to mills: without the transport infrastructure enjoyed by large plantations, easy access to roads and mills is paramount for smallholders.
- The study also identified zoning and geographic factors as other important drivers of smallholder oil palm expansion into peatlands, as well as the presence of large concessions.
- The study authors say the findings can help inform policies targeting areas of peatland to be protected and help small-scale farmers improve their incomes without clearing more land for planting oil palms.
JAKARTA – Smallholder farmers in Sumatra who grow oil palms are more likely to expand their farms into carbon-rich peat forests the closer they are to roads and palm oil mills, a new study has found.
The study by researchers from the University of Maryland in the United States and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore examined the spatial distribution and drivers of the expansion of smallholder oil palm into the forests of peat from the Indonesian province of Riau.
Riau has both the second largest area of peatland in Indonesia and the largest palm oil production of any province in the country, with a rapid rate of smallholding expansion.
This expansion has come at the expense of natural ecosystems, as farmers drain and clear peat swamp forests, a practice that releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.
The researchers wanted to know what factors push small farmers to clear peat swamp forests, given the lack of research on the issue, especially for independent farmers cultivating plots of less than 25 hectares (62 acres). The lack of data is also shocking given that smallholders manage nearly half of the total area of oil palm plantations in Indonesia.
Jing Zhao, lead author of the study and an agricultural economist at the Center for Environmental Science at the University of Maryland, said the discrepancy could be because the expansion of smallholders came later than the initial surge of growth of industrial oil palm plantations.
“[A]Moreover, ‘smallholders’ are by definition individually small and often widely dispersed,” Zhao told Mongabay. “People may not realize that there are currently so many palm oil smallholders on peatlands and it is difficult to get data on oil palm smallholders.”
The researchers say the study is the first of its kind to use remote sensing and space-based data to identify the drivers of smallholder expansion into peatlands. It focused on smallholder oil palm farmers operating on land that was once peat swamp forest in 1990.
The researchers found that distance to roads and factories plays a critical role in driving this expansion. According to the study, the chances of a given area of peat swamp forest being cleared for smallholder oil palm growers decrease rapidly with distance from roads and mills.
For each kilometer increase in distance to the nearest road, the chance of peat forest conversion drops by 59% and by 7% for each kilometer increase from the nearest factory, according to the study results.
He also found that the spatial patterns of oil palm cultivation by smallholders are distinct from those of industrial oil palm plantations.
Since 1990 in Riau, 75% of the small oil palm farms that developed in the peat swamp forest were located within 1 kilometer (0.6 mi) of a road; 90% were located within 2 km (1.2) of a road and 25 km (15 mi) of a mill, according to the study.
And for all land within 0.5 km (0.3 mi) of a road, oil palm smallholders accounted for the majority of the land cover, according to the study.
He also found that the average distance between smallholder oil palm farmers and the nearest road (722 ± 806 meters) is much shorter than for industrial oil palm plantations (1,292 ± 1,330 m).
All of this shows “how dependent smallholder palm oil producers are on road access,” Zhao said.
The crucial role that road access plays in the expansion of smallholders comes down to the nature of oil palm production, where timing is everything. When farmers harvest palm fruits, they must process them within 48 hours or the quality of the oil will deteriorate due to the effects of enzymes and oxidation.
“[B]But smallholders usually cannot afford to transport their own goods to processing plants,” Zhao said. “Better access to roads benefits smallholders by reducing marketing and transport costs, thereby facilitating production and consequently improving the socio-economic conditions of smallholders.”
In addition to roads and mills, zoning factors such as location of concessions and migrant settlements, and environmental factors such as rainfall and altitude, are important drivers of smallholder expansion of oil palms in peatlands, according to the study.
It showed that small oil palm farms are more likely to be located in regions with higher rainfall, higher slopes and lower elevation compared to other land cover types. He also found that the presence of concessions, usually held by industrial plantation companies, severely limits the expansion of smallholder oil palms.
According to the study, only about 50,000 hectares (123,600 acres) of oil palm smallholders, or 30% of smallholdings in Riau, were located in oil palm concessions, while about 21,700 hectares ( 53,600 acres), or 14%, was in pulpwood leases. .
When oil palm concessions are established, the chances that peat areas inside them will be converted to oil palm smallholders are about 77% lower than the chances outside of concessions, according to the report. ‘study. Inside pulpwood concessions, the odds are 52% lower than outside.
The researchers said that smallholder oil palms generally do not exist inside concessions because “the company would maximize the concession area for its own industrial plantations.”
Conservation Opportunities
By understanding the drivers of smallholder expansion, the researchers said, stakeholders can identify strategies to slow deforestation of remaining peat swamp forests in Riau and across Sumatra.
“This knowledge is important to guide future decisions in road infrastructure planning and forest conservation,” Zhao said.
This is particularly important because although Riau has lost much of its peat swamp forest, up to 70% since 1990, nearly a third of the peat swamp forest area remains, spanning some 940,000 hectares. (2.3 million acres).
“By taking into account the settlement patterns of smallholder farmers, inside and outside concessions, unintended negative consequences for the conservation of remaining peat swamp forests can be avoided,” the researchers said.
To make conservation efforts more targeted and effective, researchers have identified regions that are at high risk of further conversion to smallholder oil palm plantations, determined by their distance from roads and mills. Researchers found 291,755 hectares (720,942 acres) of remaining peat swamp forest to be at high risk. Of these, 29,470 hectares (72,822 acres) are located within 2 km of roads and 25 km of mills, while 66,598 hectares (164,567 acres) are located within 2 km of a road and 195,687 hectares (483,553 acres) are located within 25 km. of a mill.
“The government should give more priority to protecting these high-risk areas,” Zhao said. “Additionally, future roads and mills should be kept some distance from remaining peatlands to limit oil palm expansion.”
To protect these high-risk areas, the government could designate them as protected areas or place them under an existing moratorium on peatland clearing, the researchers said. The government could also expand its services in these high-risk areas to help smallholders identify effective ways to increase their income other than by clearing peat forests for oil palms. This could include efforts to improve yields and production from existing farmland, the researchers added.
There is also a need to define clear and updated concession boundaries, given that more than 30% of the remaining peat swamp forests are within concessions, according to the researchers.
“Additionally, the remaining peat swamp forests within the concessions could be used to generate carbon credits, if international carbon markets become sufficiently developed,” the researchers said.
Quote:
Zhao, J., Lee, JS, Elmore, AJ, Fatimah, YA, Numata, I., Zhang, X. & Cochrane, MA (2022). Spatial patterns and drivers of smallholder oil palm expansion in the peat swamp forests of Riau, Indonesia. Environmental Research Letters, 17(4), 044015. doi: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac4dc6
Banner image: Roads separate a natural forest (left), an oil palm plantation (bottom right) and a timber plantation (top right) in Borneo, Malaysia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
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