By Clarissa C. Giri
“Without environmental sustainability, economic stability and social cohesion cannot be achieved”
– Phil Harding
(Archaeologist)
On 23rd July, 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to the eight North-Eastern states to support the plan to expand palm oil plantations so that India can be self-sufficient in its palm oil needs, as the country’s need for edible oil increases. On 3rd August, 2021, The Shillong Times reported that Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali may develop an oil palm plantation in Meghalaya, “despite serious environmental threats.” This raised alarms at a terrifying decibel across the state. Furthermore, Patanjali has plans to expand its oil palm plantations in Meghalaya and other North-Eastern states, through its daughter franchise, Ruchi Soya, and aims to do so, on a massive scale. According to Business North-East, the government is aggressively pushing for increased cultivation under the special program on Oil Palm Area Expansion (OPAE), and for the next five years, 12 other states, as well as the North-Eastern states, will see the expansion of oil palm cultivation supported by a budget of 300 crore rupees.
India is one of the biggest consumers of palm oil in the world and imports billions of rupees worth every year. These imports have a direct impact on the scale of the deforestation and habitat destruction, due to oil palm agriculture, in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia.
Over the past few years, India has been working towards boosting its own production in order to reduce its dependence on these imports. Factors such as India’s water-dependent agricultural system, small landholdings and a long gestation period required for oil palms to fully mature, have been hindering progress. Yet, India is committed to the large-scale cultivation of oil palms, adding to the pre-existing issues of water scarcity and triggering mass conversion of bio-diverse forests into mono-cultures of oil palm plantations. No matter where the oil comes from, huge areas of forest cover will be sacrificed for it. Moreover, in an economy like India, whose majority depend solely on agriculture, either directly or indirectly, having mono-cultures of oil palms, which has a gestation period of 4-5 years, will have a huge impact on the economic security of farmers and those dependent on them, along with the already persistent problem of water shortage and an observed persistent erratic monsoon.
Palm oil is pressed from the fleshy fruit of the oil palm tree, Elaeis guineensis, a species native to Africa that also thrives elsewhere in the humid tropics. Palm oil has been used since the 1990s in processed food industries due to its low costs and high yield. The fruit of the tree is harvested for its oil; the flesh of the fruit is pressed for oil for food production purposes and the core of the fruit is pressed separately and mainly used for soaps, industrial purposes as well as in processed food. The health benefits or drawbacks of the oil has been long debated, however there can be no debate that the development of palm oil plantations is a major driver of deforestation. This is affecting some of the world’s most bio-diverse ecosystems, severely degrading the environment and depleting the carbon sinks of the world that has led to catastrophic impacts on forests, endangered animals and a major contributor to climate change.
North-East India is part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot which very much includes Meghalaya. National Geographic defines biodiversity hotspots as, “areas that are both rich with life and at high risk for destruction.” This definition means that the majority of plants that exist in a biodiversity hotspot are endemic, that is, they do not exist anywhere else on Earth and whose very existence is at risk. National Geographic further states, “to be classified as a biodiversity hotspot, a region must have lost at least 70 percent of its original natural vegetation, usually due to human activity.”
According to The Meghalaya Biodiversity Board’s website, “the state (Meghalaya) also represents an important part of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot which is one of the 4 bio-diversity hotspots present in India and 34 in the world. The state of Meghalaya has been identified as a key area for biodiversity conservation due to its high species diversity and high level of endemism.”
The Meghalaya Forests and Environment department further states in its website that, “the forests are also home to rare and endemic plants and animals. The undisturbed primary forests are botanically well known and extraordinarily rich. Forests of the state shelters more than 3500 flowering plants, 352 orchids, 40 bamboo species and about 800 medicinal plants resources. The state is part of the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot of the world. There are about 40 endemic plant species and 75 threatened plant species found in Meghalaya. Amongst its rare species are the insect eating Pitcher plant (Nepenthes khasiana), Wild citrus (Citrus indica) and Pygmy Lily (Nymphaea tetragona). The Rhododendron Forest at Shillong Peak is a major attraction for tourist during blooming period (February to April).”
We have all recently felt the hurt and loss due to the clearing of the great trees that flanked the roads of Upper Shillong, which were felled for road expansion. This garnered considerable media attention due to the visual impact and the loss of biodiversity and heritage. This is a foretaste of what we, as a community, will be faced with, if the plantation of oil palm trees should be allowed to proceed without opposition. Oil palm plantations require huge areas of forest and as tropical forests are cleared for oil palm plantation, carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2), which is the greenhouse gas that is having the greatest contribution to global warming.
Climate change poses a threat to food production and quality, potential increases in diseases transmitted by insects (such as Lyme disease and malaria), air pollution and other public health issues. Evidence also suggests that rising temperatures and reduced air quality are also harmful to mental health. In 2016, the U.S. Global Change Research Program found evidence that extreme weather events have also been associated with increases in aggressive behavior.
Palm oil production also has the potential to devastate our rivers and other natural water systems. The process to produce palm oil requires significant amounts of chemical input, which if not treated appropriately will increase pollution, and especially water pollution. Furthermore, the waste produced from the processing of palm oil also poses a huge problem. For every 100 tonnes of oil palm fruit that gets processed, 22 tonnes of crude palm oil is produced but 67 tonnes of waste remains. This waste is known as POME or palm oil mill effluent and consists of palm kernels and husks, as well as branches and waste-water. The waste effluent must be heavily and thoroughly treated before it can be released back into the water cycle. These impacts are in addition to the deforestation and loss of endemic species of plants and animals outlined earlier.
As per news reports, Ruchi Soya has already completed field surveys. Various MoUs have already been signed by some North-Eastern states with Ruchi Soya however, no public knowledge of a similar agreement has been signed with Meghalaya so far. Moreover, as per a tweet by the Chief Minister of the state, Conrad Sangma, the Union Cabinet, on Wednesday, 18th August, 2021, approved the implementation of National Mission on Edible Oils which is promising to promote oil palm cultivation with a focus on the North Eastern states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. All this indicates that the wheels are in motion towards the development of significant oil palm plantations across Meghalaya.
If palm oil has to be produced in Meghalaya at all costs, the government must ensure that there is a commitment to a long-term sustained investment in proper waste treatment before permitting any oil palm plantation and processing in the state. Novel waste treatment technologies such as REGEN (Waste Recovery and Regeneration system) should be mandated, to convert all the solid and liquid bio-masses from the palm oil mill into valuable, reusable, eco-friendly products. Shortcuts and commercial interest-friendly approaches that neglect the developers’ responsibilities with respect to the environment are not the way forward. If a similar approach to that taken in other projects in Meghalaya such as the illegal coke plants, the dumping of chemical waste into Ranikor river, the recent embarrassing garbage crisis in Jowai, is also expected to be taken for oil palm plantation, then the whole idea of allowing a multinational company to set foot on our only home must be stopped at all costs so that further environmental cataclysms in the state can be avoided.
The writer is Doctoral Research Scholar, Department of Anthropology, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. Email: [email protected]