Fieldwork

What's the problem? 

The palm oil industry is an extractive industry linked to deforestation, land degradation, disease spread, and economic vulnerability for small scale farmers (usually managing <10ha of land). At the same time, global demand for oil palm is projected to increase in the coming years. 

What's the solution? 

Palm oil agroforestry, where oil palms are cultivated alongside other productive trees and short-term crops, offers both economic and ecological gains compared to palm oil monoculture. Studies have demonstrated that agroforestry offers a myriad of benefits for smallholder farmers, including by increasing per-hectare profits, diversifying income, improving food supply and using land more efficiently– in addition to improving on-farm biodiversity and ecosystem functioning

Why has the solution not been implemented at scale in Southeast Asia, where almost 90% of palm oil is produced?

While our fieldwork has demonstrated significant farmer interest in oil palm agroforestry, there remains four structural barriers to implementing agroforestry at scale:

1. Agronomic design. Farmers lack the technical expertise to design agroforestry systems tailored to both biophysical and socio-cultural conditions.

2. Financing. Farmers lack affordable capital to finance replanting costs and bridge the income gap before new crops mature.

3. Field implementation. Agroforestry involves the introduction of new crops which farmers may not be familiar with, but existing training methods are time and resource-intensive, and do not reinforce knowledge through repeated exposure and communities of practice. 

4. Market access. Reliable buyers for non-palm crops do not exist at scale. Farmers want to focus on working the land, and feel unable and unwilling to become supply chain entrepreneurs themselves.  

What's the problem? 

The state of Sabah, located at the tip of Borneo, hosts 72% of unelectrified Malaysians. The Sabah Renewable Energy Rural Electrification Roadmap (SabahRE2) is a consortium of non-profit organizations that have created a 10-year roadmap to electrify 206 villages, reaching universal electrification.

What's the solution? 

SabahRE2 builds minigrids, energy systems that generate and distribute power independently of the main national transmission grid, for these unelectrified communities. These minigrids are primarily solar or hydro and would replace costly & polluting diesel generators that some households currently use.