Key messages Many independent oil palm smallholders threaten to become alienated from formal markets because they lack the technical capacity and/or resources to comply with public and private sustainability standards.Since resolving compliance barriers will require targeted interventions, it is becoming increasingly important to better understand the types of barriers faced by different types of smallholders.This brief presents preliminary findings of research on sustainability, legality and productivity challenges arising from independent smallholder oil palm expansion in Riau, Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan.Research demonstrates how frontier expansion is often driven by larger out-of-province and absentee farmers that engage in oil palm for investment purposes rather than by smaller farmers (e.g. less than 3 ha) dependent primarily on household labor.Findings show how smallholder legality issues - faced especially by smallholders whose oil palm operations more closely resemble that of businesses - constitute the most significant compliance challenge.

This book focuses on the spread of public and private environmental and food safety regulations from Europe and North America to Asia and Africa. It explores the growth of policy diffusion and standard alignment on sustainability observed in non-Western follower countries in a globalizing world.

Key messages Different types of interactions are emerging involving public and private (non-state) actors across sustainability initiatives in the palm oil sector in Indonesia.Such initiatives include the development of gover

Key messages The global palm oil value chain has grown in complexity over time as have the public and private regulations governing the sector. This influences stakeholder decisions along the palm oil supply chain and the territories where it is produced.Weak alignment between the many regulatory initiatives has given rise to a 'transnational regime complex' that is struggling to resolve effectively many structural performance issues that have long plagued the palm oil sector.Key performance issues facing the palm oil sector relate to pervasive land conflict and informality, yield differences between companies and smallholders, and a high carbon debt linked to emissions arising from deforestation and peatlands conversion.Different disconnects, complementarities and antagonisms characterize current governance. Building connections and enhancing complementarities are important ways to gradually reduce antagonisms.Complementarities have emerged among instruments with global reach, whereas disconnects persist especially within public regulations, between regulations and private standards, and between standards operating across different territorial scales.Several connections can be built by better linking existing regulations, and public regulations and private standards at different levels. These could arise by embracing approaches that look at both supply chain and territorial management.The main policy targets to achieve sustainability and inclusivity are: 1) limiting the expansion of palm oil in high-carbon forests and peatlands; 2) adopting mechanisms to enhance transparency and accountabilities; 3) creating conditional incentives to intensify palm oil supply, mainly of smallholder farmers; 4) adopting new approaches to facilitate the upgrade of smallholder production systems; and 5) legalizing tenure claims under different types of rights recognition schemes.

There is abundant literature focusing on the palm oil sector, which has grown into a vigorous sector with production originating mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia, and on increased palm oil consumption in many countries around the globe, particularly European Union states, China and India. This sector expansion has become quite controversial, because while it has negative social and environmental impacts, it also leads to positive benefits in generating fiscal earnings for producing countries and regular income streams for a large number of large- and small-scale growers involved in palm oil production. This document reviews how the social, ecological, and environmental dynamics and associated implications of the global palm oil sector have grown in complexity over time, and examines the policy and institutional factors affecting the sector's development at the global and national levels. This work examines the geographies of production, consumption and trade of palm oil and its derivatives, and describes the structure of the global palm oil value chain, with special emphasis on Malaysia and Indonesia. In addition, this work reviews the main socioenvironmental impacts and trade-offs associated with the palm oil sector's expansion, with a primary focus on Indonesia. The main interest is on the social impacts this has on local populations, smallholders and workers, as well as the environmental impacts on deforestation and their associated effects on carbon emissions and biodiversity loss. Finally, the growing complexity of the global oil palm value chain has also driven diverse types of developments in the complex oil palm policy regime governing the sector's expansion. This work assesses the main features of this emerging policy regime involving public and private actors, with emphasis on Indonesia. There are multiple efforts supporting the transition to a more sustainable palm oil production; yet the lack of a coordinated public policy, effective incentives and consistent enforcement is clear and obvious. The emergence of numerous privately driven initiatives with greater involvement of civil society organizations brings new opportunities for enhancing the sector's governance; yet the uptake of voluntary standards remains slow, and any push for the adoption of more stringent standards may only widen the gap between large corporations and medium- and smallscale growers. Greater harmonization between voluntary and mandatory standards, as well as among private initiatives is required. Commitments to deforestation-free supply chains have the potential to reduce undesired environmental impacts from oil palm expansion, and while this risks excluding smallholders from the supply chains, such commitments may function to leverage the upgrading of smallholder production systems. Their success, however, will require greater public and private sector collaboration.

The palm oil sector in Indonesia has seen the adoption of zero deforestation commitments by the larger companies in the form of various pledges around No Deforestation, No Peat, and No Exploitation (NDPE). At the same time, at the national and sub-nationa

The rapid development of oil palm cultivation feeds many social issues such as biodiversity, deforestation, food habits or ethical investments. How can this palm be viewed as a ‘miracle plant’ by both the agro-food industry in the North and farmers in the tropical zone, but a serious ecological threat by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) campaigning for the environment or rights of local indigenous peoples? In the present book the authors – a biologist and an agricultural economist- describe a global and complex tropical sector, for which the interests of the many different stakeholders are often antagonistic. Oil palm has become emblematic of recent changes in North-South relationship in agricultural development. Indeed, palm oil is produced and consumed in the South; its trade is driven by emerging countries, although the major part of its transformations is made in the North that still hosts the largest multinational agro industries. It is also in the North that the sector is challenged on ethical and environmental issues. Public controversy over palm oil is often opinionated and it is fed by definitive and sometimes exaggerated statements. Researchers are conveying a more nuanced speech, which is supported by scientific data and a shared field experience. Their work helps in building a more balanced view, moving attention to the South, the region of exclusive production and major consumption of palm oil.