Is Palm Oil Land Expansion Still Needed?

The area of Indonesian palm oil plantations is currently around 15 million hectares, with CPO or crude palm oil production reaching 46.73 million tonnes in 2022. Indonesian palm oil producers are located in 26 provinces with the province producing the most palm oil namely Riau, followed by Central Kalimantan followed in second place, then North Sumatra. While the province that produces the least palm oil is the Riau Archipelago and above it are North Maluku and Maluku. The CPO product is processed into derivative or downstream products and part of it is exported. In general, the classification of CPO derivative products (downstream products) is grouped into, such as: oleochemicals, oleofood, and bioenergy.

The high demand for vegetable oil, especially crude palm oil or CPO, is driving efforts to expand oil palm plantations or extensification in Indonesia. But is this extensification really needed and the only way to increase CPO production? Meanwhile, permits issued for palm oil plantations have reached more than 25 million hectares as shown in the table below.

Biochar should be encouraged to use it rather than extensification of the land. The use of biochar will improve soil fertility and also make fertilization more efficient so that NUE (Nutrient Use Efficiency) increases, for more details read here. FFB production increase of 30% or more is possible with biochar. CPO production is estimated to increase by 30% to around 60 million tonnes annually. This is also equivalent to saving land reaching 5 million hectares. The problem of land disputes that reach hundreds of cases throughout Indonesia, land conversion, deforestation and so on can be overcome by using this biochar. Of course this should be a serious consideration for the intensification of palm oil plantations compared to the extensification of the land. Apart from that, a climate solution in the form of carbon sequestration / carbon sink can also be carried out simultaneously with the application of the biochar. Every 1 ton of biochar will store or reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) in the atmosphere by approximately 3 tons. And the price of carbon credits from carbon removal is also increasing.