Oral communications by SPOP people

Feintrenie L. 2013. Oil palm business models. 4e conférence internationale biocarburants et bioénergies. 2ie, CIRAD, Ministère des Mines et de l’Énergie : Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 21-23 novembre 2013

CONCLUSION

The development of large-scale industrial oil palm plantations might be of interest in countries of low population density with large areas of non-forested unoccupied lands. On the opposite, in countries with high density of family farming, oil palm smallholders should be favored, as well as artisanal mining of red palm oil. Nonetheless, new forms of partnerships between the industry and smallholders – such as alliances in Colombia - must be imagined to adapt to the African context. These partnerships must include technical support to the oil palm growers and access to facilitated access to high quality seedlings and inputs, against the sale of their bunches to the mill at a price similar or superior to the local market price. The joint-venture system of ownership of mills might be an opportunity to better secure the participation of smallholders into the partnership. In general terms, sustainable oil palm development requires compliance to international standards of sustainable production such as RSPO certification; the ‘free, prior and informed consent’ of any community directly or indirectly involved in a development project or who use or benefit from the land or natural resources which will be affected by the project; and transparency on any negotiation of concession, and on management of planting credits. Land agreements have also to be respected on a long term basis in order to avoid conflict with landowners. A sustainable oil palm development also requires investment in increasing FFB productivity of smallholdings, as well as favoring private investments of agro-industries which can provide skills, productivity, and capacity of investment.

Baudoin A., Bosc PM. , Bessou C., Moulin M., Wohlfahrt J., Jannot C., Lé K. , Rafflegeau S.,Marichal M., Caliman JP. 2014. Towards a multidimensional assessment grid of smallholders' oil palm plantations: a preliminary proposal from SPOP project. ICOPE Conference, 12-14 February 2014, The Stones Hotel, Bali, Indonesia

Achievements

In the study site in Riau province, where oil palm cultivation tends to standardise the landscape, overwhelm the local economy and polarise the households’ activity systems, we could identify a significant heterogeneity at holding and households’ levels. The choice of the study area was consistent in order to explore the diversity of the systems while having a long-term historical retrospective to try to analyse its origin. We may then further assume that this diversity will increase when reaching the margins of the companies’ influences or in regions where the oil palm development is more recent. But this would need to be further investigated. We identified a wide range of oil palm productive systems – ranging from 2 ha to 110 ha embedded in a diverse setting of activity systems. This highlights the social rapid differentiation associated with the spread of income generation through oil palm production development. This, however, does not undermine potential unequal development and the huge gaps this rapid process of accumulation may induce. In a first attempt to better understand the choices made by the smallholders, we proposed to distinguish a combination of rationales between “profitability” associated to plasma plots and flexibility associated to “independent” plots, which aims can be reached adopting various strategic pathways. The decision making for investing in an oil palm plantation will highly depend on the life cycle situation and the economic (income, savings) and institutional conditions (access to land, access to credit and technical package) that will orient towards plasma or independent plot. This diversity of the production systems was the baseline assumption of the SPOP research project that aims to bring out this feature of the local production system in order to lay out a basis for an in-depth analysis linking structural characteristics and 3D performances. Our approach and tools were suitable to characterise the diversity of holdings and households’ activities and strategies. The questionnaire and survey guide were appropriate to identify the structural characteristics of the holdings and the activity system of the households. However, there is still room to reduce the size and length of the questionnaire and to improve its ergonomics in order to gain efficiency in implementation. At plot level, the structure of the questionnaire was also adequate. In this survey, we chose to limit data collection to two plots in the case of mixed production systems (plasma and independent) and sometimes it was not possible to get information on both plots due to time constraints or the unavailability of information.

To consolidate

The time constraint for field work and the choice to cover the diversity of systems led us to base our typology on a limited number of interviews and questionnaires. By spotlighting the diversity of situations and the more consolidated holdings, we certainly underestimate the bulk of real smallholders below 4 ha for instance. Moreover, some missing data in the surveys prevented us from strengthening our analysis (in precision and statistical validation) and the suggested typology does require further validation through a wider set of holdings. Therefore we would need to increase the number of holdings in our sample and complete the data to strengthen the typology and characterise the trajectories. In order to be efficient and optimise the work on primary data, our sample would need to match with a statistical coverage of the area. This complementary work would enable better knowledge of the structural differentiation in oil palm production. This differentiation process needs to be better understood to identify the set of constraints and opportunities that orient smallholders towards such differentiated trajectories. More insight on the perceptions and projections of the smallholders regarding their practices, associated constraints, risks or opportunities also is crucial. To do so, qualitative analyses based on a comprehensive approach bringing into the picture life cycles, evolution of assets and subsequent evolutions of holding strategies are needed. This must be deepened on a limited number of “robust” trajectories (as we started in this preliminary work). The collection of more accurate information at the plot level would necessitate a permanent survey mechanism on a limited number of holdings in order to document the practices within a given type of productive structure. This would allow for testing the robustness of the relation between the type of structure and the type of performances based on the relevant indicators identified here. This combination (identification of a limited number of trajectories and linkage with a permanent plot survey) would provide useful results for smallholders to improve their knowledge on the efficiency and adapt both their strategies and agricultural practices.

Poster presentations by SPOP people

Moulin M., Feintrenie L., Bessou C., Wohlfahrt J. 2014. Oil palm dreams and disillusions: smallholders’ plantations in a context of poor access to agricultural inputs. ICOPE Conference, 12-14 February 2014, The Stones Hotel, Bali, Indonesia

Moulin M., Bessou C., Wohlfahrt J. 2014.Understanding the drivers of land use changes: the case of oil palm managements in Sumatra (Indonesia). ICOPE Conference, 12-14 February 2014, The Stones Hotel, Bali, Indonesia