How the world got hooked on palm oil

Before you grab your cape and tin hat to save people and planet from the evil oil palm barons….spare a moment to listen to this excellent reportage on how the world got addicted to palm oil.

Remember….knowledge is power.

And you only get the best here!

https://player.fm/series/the-guardians-audio-long-reads/how-the-world-got-hooked-on-palm-oil-podcast

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‘Has oil palm cultivation gone over the top and beyond? Yes! When one considers every ten minutes the size of one football field is cleared somewhere in this world just to plant oil palm. Then it would be foolhardy to defend the indefensible. Has this unmitigated cultivation of oil palm resulted in grief to people and planet? Yes, not only people and planet, but also to the countless animals who have historically lived in peace and harmony with the ecology. When one can walk dead North, east or south or any bloody direction and see nothing except neat rows of oil palm – then it is hard to deny that something is simply not right with this picture.

Like I said…I will never defend the indefensible…the axe will come down and by the looks of it, it will be hard smashing at it! The Europeans will never reverse their decision. As for the Americans, their farmers literally own Congress. So that’s as good as cut and dried.

I have no regrets. It was a decent innings. I had a good run for ten straight years. It was the sweetest ten years than any man worth his salt could ever ask for from the trilogy of Goddesses of providence, benevolence and forebearance.

I have a confession to make. I knew this day of reckoning would come. I knew the powers that be would one day put an end to this circus and line people up against the wall and settle their scores. But you dont understand, those ten years were like running with the wolves in the full glare of the indigo moon. They weren’t your normal run of the mill ten passing years….they were years where a man if he was prepared to take risk, wake up at the crack of dawn, put in twelve straight hours a day could make so much money that he was unlike the conquisatodor of lore.

And now that the curtain will come crashing down…matters little to me.

As for me. I can plant coffee. Or maybe banana and if I can some how reach detente with the nation of the monkeys…coconuts maybe in fifty percent of my land holdings. The rest I will settle for coffee. Coming to think of it….I can plant anything in the world providing it has roots and knows how to give back at least ten times what I once gave it.

I am after the best farmer in the world….or maybe I just have to believe that.’