Sections of young and maturing palm oil trees at the plantation of PT Gunung Sejahtera Ibu Pertiwi (GSIP), a unit of Astra Agro Lestari, in Central Kalimantan.
Photographer: Muhammad Fadli/BloombergAging Trees Show a Crisis Looms for the World’s Everything Oil
The pandemic and last year’s record palm oil prices have exacerbated delays to replanting efforts, putting future supply at risk.
Across swathes of Southeast Asia, maturing palm oil trees, some as tall as a 12-storey building, are turning into a multi-billion dollar headache for local farmers, regional governments and consumers everywhere.
As oil palms approach their commercial lifespan of a quarter-century, they provide less of the versatile edible oil, used in everything from ice cream to cosmetics and fuel. Some plants become too ungainly to tackle for laborers, who rely on hand-held sickles attached to long poles. New palms, however, take several years to yield fruit in commercial quantities.