Analysis of the foreign direct investment, oil palm expansion, and food security in Indonesia: Sumatra and Kalimantan case studies

Oil palm (Elaeis spp.) is one of the world’s most rapidly expanding crops. Especially prevalent in Malaysia and Indonesia, oil-palm plantations are also increasing rapidly across tropical regions as diverse as New Guinea, Equatorial Africa, Central America, and the Amazon (Butler & Laurance 2009; Koh & Wilcove 2009). Oil palm is an important driver of tropical deforestation, in part, because plantation owners often use timber revenues from old-growth forests to subsidize the initial costs of plantation establishment and maintenance (Fitzherbert et al. 2008). Expansion of oil palm imperils both lowland rainforests and peat-swamp forests, which are, respectively, among the biologically richest and most carbon-dense ecosystems on Earth (Butler & Laurance 2009; Koh et al. 2009a). The rapid expansion of oil palm seems likely to continue for many years because of its high profitability and the growing global demands for edible oils and biofuel feedstocks. Proponents of palm oil emphasize that its main alternatives, including soy, sunflower, and canola (rapeseed) oils, have production efficiencies just 10–20% as high as palm oil on a per-hectare basis and would therefore require much larger areas of cultivated land to have a similar benefit (Basiron 2009). Nevertheless, from climate-change and biodiversity perspectives, the advantages of palm-oil production are greatly diminished when it contributes either directly or indirectly to deforestation (Gibbs et al. 2008; Danielsen et al. 2009). Growing concerns about the environmental impacts of palm oil helped initiate the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), a nonprofit, industry-led trade organization whose stated mission is to “provide RSPO-certified palm oil to the market in a clear and transparent manner” and to “promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil” (www.rspo.org/What_is_RSPO@.aspx). As implied by the word roundtable, the RSPO professes to advocate a balanced, multistakeholder approach, with considerable emphasis on environmental sustainability. According to the RSPO, this is evidenced by the fact that four of the 16 members of its executive board are from conservation or social-developmental organizations. The RSPO also takes pains to draw a distinction between itself and industry-advocacy groups, such as the Malaysian Palm Oil Council and Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association, by emphasizing its efforts to improve the industry’s sustainability and transparency (V. Rao, personal communication). The RSPO has considerable potential to improve the environmental performance of producers and users of palm oil. Although established only in 2004, it is strategically positioned within the palm-oil industry and is particularly influential in Malaysia. The growing membership of RSPO already accounts for approximately 35% of the global production of palm oil, although only about one tenth of this oil is currently certified as sustainable (RSPO 2008). To define sustainability in the oil-palm sector, the RSPO has developed 39 sustainability criteria, organized under eight general principles, which are designed to limit environmental impacts of growing and processing palm oil. These criteria focus on issues, such as reducing herbicide impacts, air pollution, and losses of biodiversity as well as on social and legal concerns (RSPO 2006). Nevertheless, some environmental organizations have repeatedly criticized the RSPO and its members, particularly for enabling tropical deforestation and atmospheric carbon emissions under the guise of stated, but unfulfilled, sustainability criteria (e.g., Down to Earth 2004; Greenpeace 2008; Maitar 2009). Here, we critique the RSPO from an environmental perspective and identify some specific ways it can become more effective in reducing threats to tropical ecosystems.

Dramatic land-use change in tropical regions due to oil palm expansion has recently raised controversies in the broader public. Indonesia is one of the countries where such rapid land-use change is happening. In many parts of Indonesia, oil palm is increasingly replacing forests and also more traditional agricultural crops such as rice and rubber. The drivers of this expansion are mainly higher profitability of the oil palm crop. Internationally, the demand for vegetable oil is increasing substantially, and oil palm is the most productive oil crop that can satisfy this rising demand. As the biggest producer and exporter of palm oil globally, Indonesia's oil palm cultivation is associated with negative impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions, forest fires, biodiversity loss, and conflict over land. However, oil palm cultivation was also shown to improve the economic condition of smallholder farmers. These economic gains are undoubtedly important, considering that 40% of Indonesia's oil palm plantations belong to smallholder farmers. Therefore, both the positive and negative effects of oil palm expansion need to be considered by policymakers when designing relevant policies. This dissertation aims to extend the current research about the effects of oil palm cultivation on smallholder farmers' socioeconomic status beyond a mere focus on income. Three essays compose this dissertation. The first essay explores the pathways on how oil palm cultivation may affect household nutrition and gender roles. The second essay examines to what extent oil palm cultivation may affect farm sizes and structural transformation more broadly in the medium and long run. The last essay investigates how oil palm contributes to the wellbeing of smallholder farm households in terms of human capital formation. All three essays are based on primary data collected from smallholder farm households in Jambi Province of Sumatra, one of the oil palm boom hotspots in Indonesia. Jambi is also one of the provinces with the highest share of smallholder farmers in oil palm cultivation. Therefore, conducting research in this area is highly relevant to see the consequences of oil palm cultivation on smallholder farmers' lives. Our research involves panel data with a time structure that enable us to observe impacts and impact heterogeneity over time. Oil palm expansion has raised concern about food security as oil palm might compete with food crops in utilizing the land. In the first essay, we explore how oil palm affects household nutrition, mainly through rising income and gender roles. We hypothesize that oil palm improves farmers' income that is positively associated with their nutrition through food ii purchases. Another advantage of oil palm is its labor-saving characteristic that can free family labor, including women, from on-farm work to pursue off-farm work for the generation of additional income. The switch of women's role can increase female financial autonomy, thus improving the households' nutrition, as women often act as the primary caregiver for the family. Our findings show that oil palm cultivation is positively associated with household nutrition, measured by dietary diversity scores and the consumption of calories, vitamin A, zinc, and iron. Oil palm enables farmers to afford more nutritious foods from the market. Female off-farm employment is also positively associated with nutrition. But female off-farm employment seems to be unrelated to oil palm cultivation, possibly due to unequal opportunities and traditional culture that restrain women from pursuing off-farm work. All countries with significant economic growth have seen a structural transformation of agriculture. This process involves productivity growth in farming, an increase in average farm sizes, and a shift of labor from agriculture to manufacturing and services. This phenomenon is also seen in Indonesia, where agriculture's contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) and the share of agricultural employment in total employment have been decreasing over time. As oil palm plantations expand and given that oil palm requires less labor than alternative crops, we investigate if oil palm cultivation contributes to paving the road to Indonesia's structural transformation. In the second essay, we show that oil palm adoption increases the average farm size. However, it does not increase the likelihood of households participating in the manufacturing or services sectors, probably due to the limited non-farm labor demand in the local settings. This finding needs to be carefully discerned as households with extra labor, but without enough off-farm job options, have strong incentives to expand their farm, which might lead to further deforestation. Although we know that oil palm increases farmers' income, little is known about how farm families actually spend the extra income. In the third essay, we are particularly interested to understand if the rising income from oil palm is invested in human capital formation, social needs, and material resources. These indicators capture different dimensions of human wellbeing and living standard. We employ relevant variables, including health, education, housing, electricity, and communication. Some of these variables have never been analyzed before. In general, our results show that oil palm has positive effects on most of the variables that we use. The results suggest that oil palm is positively contributing to various dimensions of smallholder farmers' wellbeing and living standards. Despite the fact that we found several positive effects in our study, further oil palm expansion at the environment's cost is not desirable. Socioeconomic and environmental factors are important in every sustainability discussion and should both receive high priority. Even though the expansion of oil palm that already happened can hardly be reversed, existing plantations can be regulated sustainably by considering various aspects. This dissertation reveals a perspective on oil palm cultivation that is often neglected in the public debate: oil palm can be a blessing if managed in a sustainable way. These findings are essential when designing policies related to oil palm cultivation, sustainable livelihoods, and broader rural development.

Farm households in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and the Americas continue to rapidly adopt oil palm, often at the expense of rainforests and traditional food crops. The environmental and income implications of oil palm expansion have been extensively documented, albeit primarily using data from Southeast Asia. Beyond a few case studies, research on the links between oil palm adoption, food security and dietary diversity among smallholders is scarce. This research gap is partly addressed in this study using data from Cameroon and Indonesia, two countries with different backgrounds in oil palm production, history and marketing systems. Oil palm is native to Cameroon but is an exotic crop in Indonesia that was commercialized a few decades ago. Household food insecurity experience scales and dietary diversity scores are computed, and descriptive and regression estimations are employed for the empirical analysis. Opposing results are revealed, reflecting the contextual differences between the two oil palm production frontiers. Oil palm farmers in Cameroon consume less diverse food than non-oil palm farmers. In Indonesia, on the other hand, oil palm farmers perform better than their non-oil palm counterparts and consume more diversified foods, possibly explaining why smallholders in Southeast Asia continue to adopt the crop rapidly. No statistically significant relationship is obtained between oil palm production and food security. The findings also suggest that income, employment, and farm production diversity may explain the observed relationship between oil palm adoption, food security and diets. Given this, oil palm production may not be a universally suitable strategy to improve food and nutrition insecurity but may be useful in some production frontiers. Context-specific and tailored policies are needed to make oil palm cultivation and food systems more nutrition-sensitive and environment-friendly.

Development practitioners and policymakers often posit that promoting cash crop expansion to generate rural employment has the potential to alleviate poverty and improve food security. Focusing upon the recent expansion of oil palm production in the northern lowlands of Guatemala, we critically evaluate this claim. To do so, we draw upon survey data collected in two neighbouring villages – one where oil palm is the main land use, another where maize and secondary forest are prevalent – to investigate how the expanding cultivation of the cash crop shapes local food access and rural livelihoods. We find that oil palm has improved food access for some households with oil palm employment. However, number of beneficiaries is relatively small and the practice does not lift them from the ranks of the food insecure. For most households in the village where oil palm is prevalent, the ability to access food has decreased, as the expansion of oil palm has displaced staple grain production and eliminated relatively more inclusive forms of agricultural employment. In contrast, households from the village where staple maize production remains predominant are notably more food secure. We conclude that, in the absence of deep changes that address the underlying causes of widespread vulnerability in Guatemala’s northern lowlands, the self-provisioning of maize and other staples will continue to serve as a cornerstone of food security, while the promotion of cash crops like oil palm will exacerbate inequalities in households’ ability to access food.

New generation of knowledge: Towards an inter- and transdisciplinary framework for sustainable pathways of palm oil production

Global population and income growth has driven the demand for agricultural land. This rapid conversion of land use to agriculture has affected the social and economic welfare of local communities within the landscape. Indonesia is a country that has recently undergone rapid land-use change due to increasing demand in global crop commodities. Oil palm, the largest export commodity in Indonesia, has been identified as a key driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss in this region. Oil palm has also replaced agricultural lands that were previously used to grow food crops for local subsistence, as well as other cash crops such as rubber. The agricultural sector is a main contributor to the national economy and is a major element in Indonesia’s economic growth and development strategy. Despite experiencing rapid economic and social changes over the past two decades, rural poverty, malnutrition, and food insecurity continue to persist at high rates. 
\nUnderstanding the social and economic consequences of land-use change is therefore imperative to address how to support the welfare and development of local communities affected within the landscape. This dissertation explores the human dimension of the recent land-use changes and particularly focuses on the impact of agricultural specialization and oil palm expansion in Indonesia. This dissertation has two research objectives. The first research objective is to analyze how agricultural specialization has affected diets in rural Indonesian households over a time. The second research objective is to examine how the oil palm expansion has affected smallholder farmers in terms of household economic welfare and intra-household gender roles. 
\nDespite great strides in reducing hunger over the last two decades, malnutrition remains a major challenge in Indonesia. High rates of child stunting coexist with high and increasing rates of overweight and obesity despite rapid economic growth and reductions in poverty over the last two decades. Part of this economic growth has been driven by a change in agricultural production systems from traditional farming techniques that typically grow multiple crops to more intensified, specialized and commercialized farms. The objective of the first essay is to analyze how changes in the structure of agricultural production have affected diets in rural Indonesian households over time. We use three waves of a panel data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey with a balanced sample of 2785 rural households between 2000 and 2015 to observe transitions in households’ food choices over time in response to the changes in production systems. We find positive relationships between production diversity and household dietary diversity as well as between market access and household dietary diversity. However, we see that there has been an overall decline in dietary diversity in households where production diversity has also reduced. This decline in dietary diversity was mostly driven by the decreased consumption of nutritious food groups (fruits, vegetables, legumes, and fish). Although the magnitude of the association between dietary diversity and production diversity was relatively small, the association between household production and consumption of some of these important food groups was quite substantial. The overall impact of increased specialization in Indonesia during the period 2000–2015 on dietary quality appears to have been negative.
\nAfter looking at national household dietary quality implications, we zoom in on oil palm producing households. The rapid expansion of oil palm in tropical regions has substantial implications for socioeconomic development. Several studies show that smallholder farmers benefit economically from cultivating oil palm. However, most existing studies examine short-term impacts with cross-sectional data, which has two disadvantages. First, issues of endogeneity are difficult to address with cross-sectional data. Second, dynamic and risk effects cannot be analyzed. In this second essay, we address both issues by using three waves of panel data from smallholder farmers in Indonesia and pseudo fixed effects panel estimators. We show that oil palm cultivation increases household living standards, measured by annual consumption expenditure, by 13% on average. Moreover, we demonstrate that oil palm cultivation reduced households’ economic risk, measured in terms of potential decreases in living standard due to income variability. The risk-reduction effect is evident despite fluctuating international palm oil prices and consequences for oil palm revenues and profits. Oil palm requires less labour than alternative crops, thus freeing family labour for other economic activities. We find that oil palm farmers are more involved in off-farm activities, which helps to smooth income and consumption. Policy support may be required to address oil palm adoption constraints that some smallholders face. In addition, fostering the non-farm economy and improving household access to lucrative off-farm jobs are important for equitable rural development.
\nTo our knowledge, there are only few studies that address the intra-household implications of oil palm expansion in Indonesia. Male and female household members might be affected differently by the increasing adoption expanding oil palm cultivation. The last essay explores the gender-disaggregated implications of oil palm cultivation among smallholder households in Indonesia. By using panel and cross-sectional data of 700 smallholder households, we examine the disaggregated farm labor input over time, 24-hour time allocation and females’ economic decision-making power. Results show that oil palm cultivation decreases on-farm family labor input, especially female labor. When looking at the male and female time allocation, results suggest that females spend less time on farms, more time on work inside the house and enjoy more leisure time as the share of farm under oil palm cultivation increases. For the male counterparts, differences in time allocation were not statistically significant, except for more leisure time among male members as the intensity of oil palm cultivation increases. Findings reveal that females are more likely to lose intra-household decision-making power in relation to farm management and farm income allocation. These findings make important contributions to addressing rural development policies aiming to expand cash crop production while also improve women’s welfare.
\n\tThis dissertation concludes by providing a synopsis of all three essays, discussing the limitations, possible future research areas, and broader policy conclusions from the findings presented above. For the first research objective, results point to more nuanced policies, targeting nutrition as such. For the second research objective, findings from essay two and three suggest that positive gains from commercial oil palm cultivation occurred in terms of household welfare but the gender implications are rather mixed. In this context rural non-farm sector is important to support income diversification, especially regarding the economic involvement of females that are no longer working on-farm in oil palm cultivation.

Mapping oil palm-related land use change in Guatemala, 2003–2019: Implications for food security

The expansion of oil palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq, Arecaceae) crops threatens tropical rainforests. It negatively impacts a series of ecosystem services and functions, including carbon (C) sequestration and dynamics, as well as nutrient cycling. Such negative impacts have pressured companies to adopt conservationist practices in palm oil production. And yet the conversion from conventional to organic farming has gained space in the last decade, studies assessing the effects of organic oil palm crops on ecosystem functioning are still scarce. Here, we assessed how alternative farming practices affect organic matter dynamics in oil palm crops. We compared oil palm crops under conventional (CP) and organic (OP) farming in Southeast Amazon. We also sampled lowland dense ombrophilous forest (floresta densa de terra firme, FT) as reference. Soils were sampled at 0–10, 10–20, and 20–30 cm depth intervals to determine soil physical–chemical properties and C and nitrogen (N) concentrations and stocks. The highest soil C and N concentrations were found at 0–10 cm interval in CP and OP. We detected no variation in soil C and N stocks within depth intervals in FT and CP, while OP had higher soil C and N stocks at the 0–10 cm interval. When comparing OP and CP crops, soil C concentrations and stocks did not vary within zones or depth intervals. All OP zones had higher soil N concentrations and stocks than their conventional counterparts, and we found a variation within depth intervals. Our results show that organic farming has positively influenced organic matter dynamics. Organic oil palm crops preserved and even increased C and N sequestration.

Delivering the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires balancing demands on land between agriculture (SDG 2) and biodiversity (SDG 15). The production of vegetable oils and, in particular, palm oil, illustrates these competing demands and trade-offs. Palm oil accounts for ~40% of the current global annual demand for vegetable oil as food, animal feed and fuel (210 Mt), but planted oil palm covers less than 5-5.5% of the total global oil crop area (approximately 425 Mha) due to oil palm's relatively high yields. Recent oil palm expansion in forested regions of Borneo, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, where >90% of global palm oil is produced, has led to substantial concern around oil palm's role in deforestation. Oil palm expansion's direct contribution to regional tropical deforestation varies widely, ranging from an estimated 3% in West Africa to 50% in Malaysian Borneo. Oil palm is also implicated in peatland draining and burning in Southeast Asia. Documented negative environmental impacts from such expansion include biodiversity declines, greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution. However, oil palm generally produces more oil per area than other oil crops, is often economically viable in sites unsuitable for most other crops and generates considerable wealth for at least some actors. Global demand for vegetable oils is projected to increase by 46% by 2050. Meeting this demand through additional expansion of oil palm versus other vegetable oil crops will lead to substantial differential effects on biodiversity, food security, climate change, land degradation and livelihoods. Our Review highlights that although substantial gaps remain in our understanding of the relationship between the environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts of oil palm, and the scope, stringency and effectiveness of initiatives to address these, there has been little research into the impacts and trade-offs of other vegetable oil crops. Greater research attention needs to be given to investigating the impacts of palm oil production compared to alternatives for the trade-offs to be assessed at a global scale.

Changes in land use, such as deforestation, expansion of sedentary agriculture and intensification of agricultural systems, significantly altered economic and ecological conditions in many regions of the world. In recent decades, one of the most rapid changes in land use was the expansion of plantation crops and the associated loss of tropical rainforests. In particular, oil palm expanded rapidly due to the increasing global demand for vegetable oil and the high land productivity of oil palm compared to other oil crops. One of the countries where the expansion of oil palm has been particularly strong during the last 25 years is Indonesia. The oil palm acreage in Indonesia increased from about 1 million hectares in 1990 to 12 million hectares in 2016. A number of studies have shown that the oil palm expansion led to increasing welfare of smallholder farmers. However, oil palm expansion was also found to aggravate ecological hazards such as greenhouse gas emission and biodiversity loss, not only by replacing the natural ecosystem functions of forests but also by replacing less-intensive agricultural production systems (e.g., rubber agro-forestry). The positive economic effects in the smallholder sector and the negative ecological effects depict a strong trade-off for policy-makers. In order to mitigate such trade-offs and ensure economic and ecological sustainability of agrarian systems, detailed studies of the impacts and determinants of land-use change are indispensable. The dissertation contains three essays on the impacts and determinants of land-use changes in Indonesia. The first essay explores the pathways through which secure property rights curb deforestation via land-sparing intensification. The second essay discusses the effect of oil palm cultivation on smallholder farmers’ welfare. The last essay investigates the impact of oil palm expansion on human population growth assessed in terms of women’s fertility rates (number of live birth per woman) channeled through income gains, rising returns to education, and other mechanisms. The expansion of agricultural land remains one of the main drivers of deforestation in tropical regions, with severe negative environmental consequences. The first essay hypothesizes that stronger land property rights could enable farmers to increase input-use intensity and productivity on the already cultivated land, thus reducing incentives to expand their farms by deforesting additional land. The current literature on the land property rights and deforestation analyzed primarily the effects of secure forest property rights on protecting forest from encroachment. For agricultural land, studies have focused on the effects of secure property rights on input intensity and crop productivity. Examining the potential effects of secure property rights for agricultural land on deforestation via agricultural intensification was rarely explored in the literature. To test our hypothesis, we compiled a data set using various kinds of data, including a panel survey of farm households in Jambi, Sumatra, satellite imageries from LANDSAT to account for spatial patterns, such as historical forest locations and data on topsoil characteristics of farmers’ plots. Results show that plots for which farmers hold formal land titles are cultivated more intensively and are more productive than untitled plots, even after controlling for other relevant factors such as soil characteristics. However, our results also show that, due to land policy restrictions, farmers located at the historic forest margins are less likely to hold formal titles for the land they cultivate. We assume that without land titles, these farmers are less able to intensify and more likely to expand into the surrounding forest land to increase agricultural output. Indeed, historic forest closeness and past deforestation activities by households are found to be positively associated with current farm size. The findings suggest that unregulated deforestation activities of farmers in combination with insecure property rights for the appropriated land are not conducive for forest conservation. Farmers with insecure property rights face incentives for extensive rather than intensive production systems, which could lead to even further deforestation if land and forest governance is weak. While the negative ecological effects of the rapid expansion of oil palm in Southeast Asia are far-reaching and relatively widely studied, the socioeconomic consequences have received much less attention in the literature. The second essay examines the welfare effects of oil palm cultivation for smallholder farm households. Unlike other related studies that have used cross-section data, our analysis builds on panel data. Farm household data were collected from 683 farm households in Jambi, Sumatra, in two survey rounds, 2012 and 2015. The results show that oil palm cultivation has significant positive effects on farmers’ consumption expenditure, our proxy of household living standards. Lower labor requirements allow oil palm farmers to further expand their farmland or reallocate the saved labor to non-farm economic activities, thus contributing to additional secondary income gains. We further test if oil palm cultivation leads to spillover effects on neighboring farm households. We find no such spillover effects, suggesting that the overall effect for the farming community is positive. The results further show that the positive welfare effect depends on the relative price of palm oil compared to rubber, the main competing crop in the region. Our results suggest that policies aimed at regulating further oil palm expansion will have to account for the economic benefits that this crop offers to the local population. While we provided evidence of positive income (consumption expenditure) effects of oil palm for cultivating farmers, we expect that the ramifications of the rapid expansion of oil palm may be more far-reaching, potentially also affecting some of the underlying determinants of economic development, such as population growth. The proliferation of new production technologies is often regarded as one of the key drivers of the historical fertility transition in the US and Western Europe. In contrast, empirical evidence on the relationship between technologies, including crop choice, and fertility in developing countries such as Indonesia is largely inexistent. The third essay of this dissertation addresses this research gap, exploring the effect of oil palm expansion on fertility in Indonesia using a range of different data sources at the regency level. Oil palm is less labor-intensive than some of the alternative crops such as rubber or rice. Hence, in a land-scarce setting, the substitution of oil palm for other crops induces labor savings similar to mechanization. We use Becker’s quantity-quality model to identify different causal mechanism through which the expansion of oil palm could affect the number of children born to a woman (fertility). Our identification strategy relies on an instrumental variable approach with regency-fixed effects, in which the expansion of area under oil palm at regency level is instrumented by regency-level attainable yield of oil palm interacted with the national oil palm expansion. While a labor-saving technology could theoretically increase fertility rates by decreasing maternal opportunity costs of time, we find consistently negative effects of the oil palm expansion on fertility. The results suggest that income gains among agricultural households coupled with broader local economic development explain this effect. Specifically, local economic development seems to have raised returns to education and triggered investments into women’s and children’s education, which together with direct income effects explain the bulk of the negative effect of the oil palm expansion on fertility. Overall, our findings are in line with previous studies, suggesting that smallholder-driven oil palm expansion has on average positive socioeconomic effects. However, the negative ecological effects are also widely documented. Our research underlines that having secure and clear property rights for agricultural land and forest as well as access to the non-agricultural sector might be important steps towards more sustainable land-use systems in Indonesia.

Purpose: This study analyzed the expansion of oil palm and its impact on the livelihood vulnerability of rural communities. Furthermore, this study analyzed the livelihood base of rural communities, explained the mechanism of oil palm expansion controlling rural land, analyzed land tenure by oil palm expansion, which caused vulnerability to rural livelihoods, and analyzed the actions of rural peasants responding livelihood vulnerability due to oil palm expansion.
 Methodology: The researchers conducted observations inTaludisub district and Popayatosub district, both of which were locations for oil palm expansion in the Pohuwato Regency of Gorontalo Province. Besides, the researchers observed coastal areas in Popayatosubdistrict, especially in Bajo tribal settlements that were affected by environmental damage in the form of floods sent from the mainland when it rained. The researchers also conducted in-depth interviews with various stakeholders who knew about oil palm expansion in Pohuwato Regency. The researchers interviewed village heads, heads of community empowerment institutions in the village, local environmental activists who actively discussed oil palm expansion, oil palm company leaders, and rural communities, both plasma peasants and other communities affected by oil palm expansion in Pohuwato Regency. To support observational and interview data, the researchers conducted a document review of previous research findings relating to the impact of oil palm expansion on local communities.
 Main Findings: Oil palm companies get two instruments in controlling the forest area and agricultural land. Those are concession rights, as well as the nucleus and plasma systems. Both instruments close rural communities to access forest areas and agricultural land. It causes livelihood vulnerability in rural communities, besides the ecological disaster in the form of flooding due to damage to the rural environment, as well as drought in the dry season. Rural communities are forced to survive by migrating and diversifying livelihoods in the form of multiple livelihoods.
 Implications: This research is significant on both the theoretical and policy levels. On the theoretical level, this research enriches the study of rural sociology, especially the study of rural access and livelihoods. As for the policy level, this research result can be a reference for the government in formulating policies regarding the development of oil palm plantations. In order to avoid livelihood vulnerability, the granting of forest area concessions to oil palm companies should be done at a radius quite far from the settlements of rural communities.
 Novelty: A concession permit granted by the government to an oil palm company closes rural communities' access to the forest area. Rural communities get worse when the company implements a nucleus and plasma system policy that causes the transfer of control of agricultural land from rural communities to oil palm companies. The nucleus and plasma system only benefits the oil palm companies as the nucleus and kills the peasants' livelihood base as the plasma. The vulnerability of the livelihood base does hit not only rural communities that are plasma peasants but also hit other communities as a result of environmental damage in the form of floods in the rainy season and drought in the dry season. Vulnerable rural livelihoods due to oil palm expansion forced rural communities to migrate to find new livelihoods and diversify their livelihoods.

BackgroundThe global palm oil market experienced a remarkable boom since the year 2000. Since palm oil can be used for biodiesel production, the global expansion of oil palm cultivation has been associated with the global biofuel boom. Biofuel policies—especially those adopted in the European Union (EU)—have been blamed for the socio-environmental impacts of oil palm expansion. We explore how the global biofuel boom interacts with national geographies and social-economic and political processes to produce country-specific trajectories of biofuel crops expansion. We analyse the expansion of oil palm cultivation in Colombia between 2000 and 2010 from a political ecology perspective.MethodsThe analysis is based on a framework that positions expansion of commodity frontiers within the ‘space-of-flows’ and the ‘space-of-place’. Through this approach, we identify the markets and geographies that define the country-specific trajectories of expansion of oil palm in Colombia, and their connections with general patterns of land control. The empirical analysis is based on primary data collected during fieldwork, and on an extensive review of secondary data about the palm oil sector and the socio-environmental effects of oil palm expansion in the country.ResultsThe contemporary oil palm expansion in Colombia was not specifically influenced by the international biofuel market. Expansion was characterized by an increasing production of palm oil for biodiesel, to supply a policy-driven national biofuel market controlled by national palm oil producers. The evidence shows that this oil palm expansion proceeded through a variety of land control practices that constitute forms of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ and ‘assimilation’. These are embedded in contextual factors that include the agrarian history of Colombia, the armed conflict, and government policies.ConclusionsOur study shows that the ways in which expansion of biofuel crops unfold in each producing country depend not only on the global biofuel market. They are also shaped by the country-specific geographies and political economies. Therefore, research and policies on the global expansion of energy crops should account for the complex and interrelated factors that mediate the specific ways in which the global demand for biofuels creates biofuel crop booms at country level.

This paper examines the nexus between food security and sustainability governance through a case study of palm oil. Palm oil's advocates claim that campaigns against palm oil and actions to halt its expansion due to sustainability concerns can undermine its food security role. However, palm oil expansion more directly undermines the food and livelihood security of rural and indigenous communities when land that rightfully belongs to, or has been used by, these communities is alienated to firms for oil palm cultivation with little or no consultation or compensation provided or alternatives considered. It is in this context that the paper examines whether the multi-stakeholder Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is able to ensure that this commodity is cultivated in ways that minimise environmental damage and livelihood disruption, thereby safeguarding palm oil's contribution to food security. The findings are mixed. RSPO certification provides fairly comprehensive and progressive socio-environmental regulation that has enhanced sustainable production practises in this industry especially by the larger transnational plantation companies mindful of their global reputation. The RSPO is also far more responsive than governments have been to the land rights of rural and indigenous communities, providing due process for land claimants as well as recognising that these communities may have legitimate rights to land even if companies were awarded legal title by governments. However, multi-stakeholder regimes can be fragile, requiring a great deal of internal accommodation and trade-offs to work. Already, different interests in the RSPO are pulling in different directions while national certification systems have emerged that are less onerous compared to the RSPO even as the latter seeks to further enhance its sustainability credentials.

The aim of this chapter is to observe the relationship between the objective and subjective measurement of household food security status in North Luwu in Indonesia. The objective measurement is done by means of the composite Dietary Diversity Score (DDScomposite) consisted of nine food groups, while the subjective measurement is done using the Subjective Food Security Score (SFSS). Specifically, this chapter estimated the probability of household for being more food secure due to their dietary diversity status and the composing food groups. For this chapter, the DDScomposite consist of nine groups: grain, tuber, animal product, oil and fat, oily seeds, nuts, sweets, fruits and vegetables, and others. Furthermore, the SFSS has five category of household food security in this measurement: insecure, somewhat insecure, somewhat secure, secure, and highly secure. The descriptive analysis shows that in all DDScomposite level the perceived food secure category always has the highest percentage. The household head largely regard that their household are in food secure level even though they only consume two or three kinds of food groups. Another finding is that keeping the tuber food group, in this case sago starch, available in household will make household heads felt more food secure. From the regression estimation, the DDScomposite as a composite score of the availability of food groups in a household is found significantly have potency to improve the perceived food security status of the household. Furthermore, among the food groups composing the DDScomposite, the existence of tuber, animal products, oily seed, nuts, as well as fruit and vegetables food groups are likely to increase the probability of a household’s SFSS being in a better food security category, whereas the sweets food group give a reverse effect.

Land-use change and livelihoods of non-farm households: The role of income from employment in oil palm and rubber in rural Indonesia