3 - Boosting Upstream Productivity of Cash Crops

Summary

The great yield breakthroughs are a chief reason for the past century's population boom and economic growth (McArthur and McCord 2017). These were achieved through improving plant varieties, increasing mineral agro-inputs, upgrading irrigation, and intensifying animal farms. At the same time, demand per capita has also been growing significantly. Global per capita food supply increased from 2,196 to 2,929 kcal/day between 1961 and 2018. The United States is leading with 3,782 kcal/day, while China has doubled its average to 3,203 kcal/day. Both Indonesia and Malaysia, however, stay close to the world average (FAOSTAT 2021).

Nevertheless, yield breakthroughs have not taken place evenly. In reality, the continuously surging demand for agricultural products has triggered both abandonment of low-yield cropland and massive conversions of forests to new cropland across the world. Improving land-use efficiency through intensification has been deemed by productivists as a direct measure to reduce unsustainable expansion, forming the basis of a bio-economy (Garnett et al. 2013). An ambitious estimate made by Tilman et al. (2011) shows that moderate intensification of existing low-yield croplands is sufficient to reduce potential cropland expansion from 1 billion ha down to 0.2 billion ha by 2050, indirectly preventing global deforestation.

In Borneo, the tightened control over land concessions by the governments as well as the rising land cost is gradually shifting the trend from rapid expansion to the intensification of existing oil palm cultivation (Varkkey, Tyson, and Choiruzzad 2018; Yusuf, Roos, and Horridge 2018). Private plantation companies, supported by both federal governments are significantly investing in improving their productivity (Bernama 2020). While oil palm is already regarded as the most productive oil crop in terms of land area used, theoretically the yield can still be further boosted by narrowing the gap between actual and attainable yields. Timber plantations have also received considerable attention for intensification but more on the aspect of long-term productivity and sustainability. The effectiveness of this strategy thus lies within the question of how much palm oil and timber can be further produced from the existing plantations without triggering unwanted environmental consequences.