Palm INNOV believes that 5 simple defense lines can be built around the palm oil industry to protect it from the current crippling labor shortage depicted in the attached article, a shortage further compounded by COVID. (https://www.theborneopost.com/2021/07/11/palm-oil-industry-facing-collapse/)

These 5 measures could also help the industry better tackle what it took too long to embrace:

The future of its millions of workers depends on these defenses holding up. It can also be said that the future of the world depends on the palm oil industry’s ability to keep on feeding it (the World) in its uniquely sustainable and most economical fashion!

Our opinion on the matter:

1️. Reduce by one-third or more the number of workers needed in each estate to loosen up the labor shortage’s noose around the industry’s neck.

This is achievable by mechanizing harvesting, a difficult task! With success awaits a sizeable bonus: an increase in the harvested bunches tonnage per hectare!

2️. Increase the oil yield with a smart & scientifically proven enhanced pollination solution hardly using labor.

3️. Introduce pollution-reducing technologies:

✔️ Methane at discharge mills
✔️ CO2 produced either by burning methane from biogas digesters or biomass
✔️ Nitrous oxide is released by fertilizers with the bonus of revitalizing plantations soils at the same time

4️. Introducing digital transformation foolproof traceability/monitoring solutions in the industry supply chain. This will show the public that the palm oil industry is better monitored and more sustainable than most other oleaginous crops grown around the World.

5️. Prove that the palm oil industry does all the above while preserving its biodiversity and its forests with foolproof monitoring SOPs documenting the wildlife present inside plantations and in their vicinity.

The good news is that all the innovations to achieve the above are either here or on the way!