Flex commodities and intertwining world-ecologies: Indonesian palm waste as an environmental fix in the New Zealand dairy industry

Abstract

Palm kernel expeller (PKE), a by-product of the palm oil production process in Indonesia, has evolved into a billion-dollar export ‘flex’ commodity to feed cows in intensified dairy production in New Zealand. As the PKE trade grew in New Zealand, the dairy industry became a transnational behemoth and a leading global exporter. Through our examination of PKE, an understudied commodity, we reveal the ways that ecological degradation to local, regional, and world-ecologies are exacerbated and intertwined. This paper argues that neoliberalisation of regulatory and trade policy, both within and between the two countries, laid the groundwork for the growth of the ecologically destructive palm oil operations of Indonesia as well as the intensified dairy operations in New Zealand, both of which rely on dispossession of Indigenous lands. Our theorisation builds on the flex commodity literature by analyzing the ways PKE became an ‘environmental fix’ and part of a transnational waste regime linking two semiperipheral regions. This environmental fix for the dairy industry temporarily limits the negative impacts of climate change induced drought. The world-ecology(ies) of such ‘fixes’ is becoming increasingly urgent and increasingly tenuous in the face of climate change.