Palm

Agriculture and our world’s forests can – and must – coexist sustainably.

To mitigate the risk of deforestation and other unsustainable practices with negative consequences for communities and the environment, we must work closely with all palm production stakeholders – growers, peers, consumer brands and retailers, NGOs, financial institutions, governments and others – to protect forests, native vegetation and peatlands, while advancing social and economic welfare.

In line with our No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation (NDPE) policy, we track progress across our palm supply chain to identify where action is needed and work alongside our suppliers to implement the necessary changes.

LDC’s years of work on supply chain traceability and sustainability puts us in prime position to meet evolving market and legislative requirement for traceable and sustainable palm oil. In 2021, we initiated the development of a methodology to quantify deforestation-free volumes in our palm oil supply chain, to be further developed in 2022 in collaboration with our technical partners and in consultation with key stakeholders. This will be used to establish our deforestation-free baseline and measure progress going forward.

In 2021 we formed new partnerships to accelerate progress towards our NDPE commitments.

As we grow our palm oil sourcing activities in Latin America and Africa, we entered a new partnership with Proforest – a non-profit organization that works to support responsible agricultural and forestry production and sourcing in over 30 countries around the world. Working with Proforest team, we conducted country-level assessments on key environmental and social issues in oil palm production, and ran supplier NDPE risk assessments to identify possible improvement opportunities.

We also joined the Palm Oil Collaboration Group, which brings together companies from every stage of the palm oil supply chain, to accelerate effective implementation of NDPE commitments. Among other collaborative areas, we actively contributed to the development of the social IRF tool, to measure companies’ progress toward the “zero exploitation” element of their NDPE commitment.

At LDC, we strive to include smallholder farmers in sustainable supply chains by training them to increase their production and yields safely and sustainably. We also support the development of essential infrastructure that is critical for smallholders to comply with sustainability requirements, and ultimately achieve certification required to have market access.

Spotlight on Côte d’Ivoire

In collaboration with the Louis Dreyfus Foundation, we launched a new project in South Comoé, Côte d’Ivoire, to train smallholder oil palm producers on sustainable farming practices, regenerative agriculture, agricultural diversification and business entrepreneurship, with particular focus on younger generations and female farmers.

This three-year project is expected to establish a rural farm business incubator that serves as a center of knowledge exchange, learning and best practice testing. It aims to train 400 young adults (minimum 30% women) and have 300 farmers apply regenerative practices and cultivation improvements at farm level.

Spotlight on Indonesia

Despite COVID-19 constraints, we progressed with our existing smallholder project in Indonesia, which has been expanded to another supply shed area for our Lampung Refinery in Mesuji District, Lampung. Aiming to train 1,000 smallholders by 2022, in 2021 we provided good agricultural practices (GAPs) training to almost 700 farmers and also helped to improve the cooperative’s infrastructure, including new washing facilities and safe chemical storage.

The project also provides a financial assessment that aims to improve smallholders’ financial access when applying for replanting loan schemes, and ongoing discussions with international donors are held to support them in this area.

The smallholders who already received training in Phase 1 of the project were offered refreshment training on GAPs, with the addition of a horticulture module that will guide them in managing intercropping during the replanting period. They were also given a refresher course on the certification process, ahead of a 2022 audit of 300 smallholders in OKU District, South Sumatra, for an upgrade of their RSPO certification.