ABSTRACT
The qualitative study aims to find out the strategy to overcome challenges of palm oil plantation expansion business in relation to environmental sustainability issues. The contribution of palm oil plantation related business has been an essential part in developing the Indonesian economy for decades. With its contribution to Indonesia's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) surmounting to more than 15 billion USD in terms of export on the year 2020 (GAPKI, 2020), and with more than 40 billion USD in terms of foreign exchange revenue to Indonesia on the year 2021 (Astra, 2021), it is no doubt the importance of Crude Palm Oil (CPO) which is the by-product of palm oil tree (Elaeis guineensis) has the utmost significant contribution to the Indonesian economy. The palm oil plantation has also significant contribution to the livelihood of the Indonesian citizen by providing jobs for more than 16 million people (CNN, 2021) especially when the pandemic Covid-19 era is happening throughout the world, and the industry also increases the social welfare of its farmers by programs that enrich the farmers with its nucleus-plasma program which fosters a partnership between the palm oil plantation companies and its local communities in a profit sharing mechanism that contributes to a minimum of 20% of total land cultivated for palm oil plantation. [ FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Eduvest: Journal Of Universal Studies is the property of Green Publisher and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full . (Copyright applies to all s.)
ABSTRACT
Crude Palm Oil (CPO) is the mainstay of Indonesian agricultural products which is the largest CPO producing country in the world. The high market share of Indonesian CPO exports reflects the high competitiveness of Indonesian CPO in the global market. The purpose of this study is to determine the competitiveness of Indonesian CPO, the concentration of the Indonesian CPO industry, and analyze the factors that are suspected to affect the competitiveness of the CPO industry in Indonesia. The data used in this study are secondary data with a five-digit ISIC (10432) using time series data for 2001-2020 and the analytical techniques used in this study include Revealed Competitive Advantage (RCA), Gini Coefficient, and Error Correction Model (ECM). The results showed that Indonesian CPO has high competitiveness in the international market, the Indonesian CPO industry is not concentrated, in the short term the variables that affect competitiveness are CPO prices, subsidized solar prices policy, and industrial concentrations, while in the long term the influential variables are biodiesel policy, subsidized diesel oil policy and industrial concentration
ABSTRACT
Purpose: Palm oil is widely used in the food industry;however, there are two main controversies connected to its use, namely, its nutritional value and the environmental consequences deriving from its crop. In Italy, the use of palm oil has recently been criticized, insomuch that some important bakery companies decided to substitute it, creating a real food marketing case. Through a focus on biscuits, this study is aimed at profiling consumers with regard to palm oil issue to better comprehend if the presence of this ingredient truly influences their food purchases and if they care about the nutritional and environmental aspects, highlighting the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on consumers' consumption. Design/methodology/approach: A questionnaire was administered to 243 subjects in Italy, in order to apply a cluster analysis. Findings: The findings show the presence of three main kinds of consumers: (1) compromise finders (sensitive to cost savings but trying to privilege palm-oil free food), (2) brand-loyal consumers (palm oil does not influence their preferences) and (3) healthsensitives (the presence of palm oil profoundly affects their choices), who represent the majority of our sample. The results and implications are discussed. Originality/value: Research on palm oil is essentially focused on chemistry, natural sciences or on its industrial uses: this study analyzes the consumer point of view by applying a different methodology compared to existing studies. © 2023, Fabrizio Flavio Baldassarre, Savino Santovito, Raffaele Campo and Giacomo Dilorenzo.
ABSTRACT
Stepping up the extraction of valuable resources from the oil palm agro-industry was fraught with palm kernel shell (PKS) disposal challenges. One mitigating measure was to recover these materials for use in fired brick production. So PKS and clay materials were characterized for their physical, mineral and thermal properties. These characterizations revealed the high content of SiO2 and Al2O3 in the clay resources and the 95.60% organic content of PKS along with its estimated 21, 774.94 (kJ/kg) higher heating value (HHV). Indexed minerals from X-ray diffraction (XRD) studies of the clay material were kaolinite, quartz, calcite and goethite. Bricks prepared with the inclusion of up to 16 wt% PKS were fired at 900 and 1000 °C. For bricks fired at 1000 °C, bulk densities decreased from 2.07 to 1.54 g/cm3, apparent porosity increased up to 89.14%, water absorption increased from 100% in reference bricks to 203.54% with the addition of 16 wt% PKS. While compressive strengths decreases were in the range of 21.67–6.07 MPa, thermal insulation improved by 22%. Similar trends were established for bricks fired at 900 °C. The analyses showed that PKS addition was more effective in tailoring the technical properties of the bricks than changes in firing temperature. The marginal differences in technical properties of bricks fired at 1000 °C relative to the 900 °C fired brick units were understood from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) studies. Therefore, this research has provided compelling evidences for use of PKS in fired brick production. © 2023 Elsevier Ltd
ABSTRACT
To date, irregularity and lack of power supply remain a global problem in the rural areas of underdeveloped and developing countries. This paper proposes a new concept for rural electrification by using palm oil mills to co-produce biodiesel from sludge palm oil. We performed a case study based on a medium-sized palm oil mill in Central Kalimantan. Approximately 2.5 tonnes of biodiesel could be produced daily using an enzymatic batch process and potentially support around 1,375 households of 4 people each in the surrounding areas. Subsequently, we performed a techno-economic assessment to study the commercial feasibility of the concept for rural electrification using the enzymatic biodiesel as opposed to commercial diesel. A 10% price deduction was applied to incentivize the local community to use the co-produced biodiesel. From our analysis, the rural electrification concept was found to be commercially viable with a return on investment of 29% and a breakeven period of less than 4 years of operation. Barring the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the price fluctuations of diesel and crude palm oil, the long-term commercial prospect of this rural electrification concept is attractive as it financially benefits both the rural community and the mill operators.
ABSTRACT
Indonesia is one of the main exporters of coal and palm oil, implying the source of energy in futures. However, these commodities could have a greater impact on national economy, determining stock market performance. The movement of international trade related to these commodities also contributes to pricing creation in global market. This research aims to investigate the effect of coal and palm oil prices on Indonesia stock performance by a stock market index price. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) was employed in this study to gain the long and short-run results. The research observations lasted between September and December 2021. The research novelty lies in exploring the impact of coal and palm oil price movements after the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 on the Indonesia Stock Market performance. It can be concluded that these effects are short-t and long-term or both. The findings show long-and short-run effects of palm oil prices on the stock market performance. However, Coal has only a long-run effect on the stock performance. The implication of this study is the consideration of these commodities by policymakers and practitioners for policy in developing the stock market performance. The research limitations and recommendations are also discussed. © 2022, City University of Hong Kong Press. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
This study analyzes the efficiency of the crude palm oil (CPO) futures market by conducting a variance ratio test and comparing it to the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures market. We discover that the weak-form efficient market hypothesis holds for both the CPO and WTI futures markets despite the significant difference in their liquidity. Using a scaling exponent, we investigate speculative trading activities and find that trading CPO futures in expectation of significant returns does not strongly involve a high level of risk unlike WTI futures. Our findings regarding market efficiency of the two futures markets are supported by the significant integration of the two with similar level of information flow from each market to the other. To explore the role of speculation in their market integration, we introduce a natural experimental setting using the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which caused a sudden decrease in the demand for fuel. The bidirectional information flow between the two markets is intensified after the COVID-19 pandemic due to lower level of speculation. The findings suggest that (i) stakeholders in the CPO market need to pay attention to the crude oil markets to anticipate its price changes, (ii) investors can use WTI futures as a hedging tool against CPO futures as long as there is mutual information flow, and (iii) regulators should carefully implement new CPO futures market policy, as either asymmetric changes in speculation or unbalanced regulation with the WTI futures market can create market distortion and regulatory arbitrage. © 2022 The Authors
ABSTRACT
In Malaysia, biodiesel was firstly introduced as a policy in National Biofuel Policy 2006 with 5 short term targets, 4 medium terms targets and 2 long term targets. The specific objective of the policy was to increase the use of biodiesel in all sectors in three different phases, which were B5, B7 and B20. The B20 phase supposedly implemented by year 2020. Therefore, the focus of this review is to revisit the biodiesel issues and to delineate the status of biodiesel production and uses specifically in Malaysia based on the information gathered from different sources, namely the journals, the governmental databases as well as the communication with the personnel involved in the industry. Currently, there are 22 biodiesel plants existed in Malaysia, with the sum production capacity 2,762,000 tonnes/year capacity. However, only 19 plants are currently in operation with total annual production at 906,153 tonnes per year. A few factors contributed to this below-capacity output from the plants. The main factor is the delayed of the B20 mandate, which supposedly executed in 2020. The failure of supposedly increment of 13% blend of biodiesel, from 7% mandate in 2016, to 20% in 2020 effected the production, since the excess production will not be able to enter the market. The start of Coronavirus (COVID 19) pandemic in early 2020, make the situation worst, because the demand of the fuel plummeted, due to the lockdown strategy introduced by the Malaysia government to stop the spreading of the disease. At the same time, the bloc of palm oil derivatives from European Union (EU) also effected the biodiesel, as 80% of biodiesel is exported to EU. The combination of internal, external, and unexpected factors like has contributed to the growth of biodiesel industry in Malaysia, despite the available of abundance raw materials and mature technology. However, with the correct strategy, this industry has a potential to take a positive step in the future. © 2022 Author(s).
ABSTRACT
This study analyzes the efficiency of the crude palm oil (CPO) futures market by conducting a variance ratio test and comparing it to the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures market. We discover that the weak-form efficient market hypothesis holds for both the CPO and WTI futures markets despite the significant difference in their liquidity. Using a scaling exponent, we investigate speculative trading activities and find that trading CPO futures in expectation of significant returns does not strongly involve a high level of risk unlike WTI futures. Our findings regarding market efficiency of the two futures markets are supported by the significant integration of the two with similar level of information flow from each market to the other. To explore the role of speculation in their market integration, we introduce a natural experimental setting using the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which caused a sudden decrease in the demand for fuel. The bidirectional information flow between the two markets is intensified after the COVID-19 pandemic due to lower level of speculation. The findings suggest that (i) stakeholders in the CPO market need to pay attention to the crude oil markets to anticipate its price changes, (ii) investors can use WTI futures as a hedging tool against CPO futures as long as there is mutual information flow, and (iii) regulators should carefully implement new CPO futures market policy, as either asymmetric changes in speculation or unbalanced regulation with the WTI futures market can create market distortion and regulatory arbitrage.
ABSTRACT
After almost three years of an ongoing pandemic, climate change sent its regards this summer to remind humankind of what the future will look like. With political uncertainties arising worldwide, a sustainable oil source becomes increasingly important in both terms: ecological and economical. Yeast oil, triacylglycerides produced by oleaginous yeasts, is a promising alternative or even replacement to plant oils like cocoa butter, palm oil and similar. It has a small ecological footprint, can be produced locally in a reliable manner and has unique characteristics making it functional in multiple applications. The following article aims to give an exciting glimpse into a trending topic and COLIPI, a startup located in Hamburg dedicated to leading the fat revolution. [ FROM AUTHOR]
ABSTRACT
This study finds asymmetric information flow from the crude palm oil (CPO) futures to the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures market despite the CPO futures market's low liquidity and small market capitalization. Our finding is robust regardless of the 2019 Coronavirus outbreak and the asymmetric information flow becomes even unilateral considering the exchange rate risk on the Malaysian Ringgit. Finally, we explain the asymmetric information flow from the CPO futures to WTI futures market given that the impact of speculation on market efficiency crowds out that of liquidity. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.
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This article looks at the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global palm oil market as well as the post-pandemic outlook for the market. It is indicated that, in the long-term, the post-pandemic outlook for the palm oil industry remains bright. Since the last quarter of 2019, palm oil supply and demand are back in balance, while stocks are declining. Prices have been relatively high for most of 2020 and 2021. Also discussed are the proven benefits of palm oil and the opportunity of the palm oil sector to achieve UN goals.
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Advancements in polymer science and engineering have helped the scientific community to shift its attention towards the use of environmentally benign materials for reducing the environmental impact of conventional synthetic plastics. Biopolymers are environmentally benign, chemically versatile, sustainable, biocompatible, biodegradable, inherently functional, and ecofriendly materials that exhibit tremendous potential for a wide range of applications including food, electronics, agriculture, textile, biomedical, and cosmetics. This review also inspires the researchers toward more consumption of biopolymer-based composite materials as an alternative to synthetic composite materials. Herein, an overview of the latest knowledge of different natural- and synthetic-based biodegradable polymers and their fiber-reinforced composites is presented. The review discusses different degradation mechanisms of biopolymer-based composites as well as their sustainability aspects. This review also elucidates current challenges, future opportunities, and emerging applications of biopolymeric sustainable composites in numerous engineering fields. Finally, this review proposes biopolymeric sustainable materials as a propitious solution to the contemporary environmental crisis. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd.
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Purpose>This study aimed to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the oil palm smallholders' income, which includes both on-farm and off-farm resources.Design/methodology/approach>This study used a simultaneous equations system for arranging the oil palm household economic model.Findings>The results showed that the negative effect of demand disruption (decreasing of household income) is more than supply disruption (production declining). Declining household income due to COVID-19 caused farmer households to have no access to both basic need and other goods.Research limitations/implications>The samples for before-pandemic data differed from the situation during COVID-19 in both the location and the person due to technical constraints in research sites.Originality/value>The main contribution of this study was providing an empirical understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic influences the economic behavior of the most vulnerable entities in the Indonesian palm oil industry (oil palm smallholder farmers' households). This study would provide baseline information on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy of oil palm smallholder's household income.
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In recent years, palm oil has been established as the most-produced oilseed oil in the world—its production volume has increased from 41 million tons in the 2007/08 season to more than 76 million tons in the 2018/19 season—and a crucial part of the Latin American agro-industrial sector. However, following a slowdown in export growth due to the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, there is a vital need for sustainable expansion alternatives such as the production of value-added oil-palm products. This chapter presents the business process integration methodology and strategies pursued by a palm oil producer in Peru to optimize the vertical growth of its operational processes within the Latin American palm oil agro-industrial sector, based on the SAP S/4Hana Business Modules: Materials Management (for purchasing), Production Planning (for making), Sales and Distribution (for selling), Controlling (for tracking) and Human Capital Management (for managing staff). © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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This article discusses the impacts of COVID-19 on palm-oil related markets, as well as new market trends and potentials in China after the COVID-19 pandemic. The demand for palm oil as an important ingredient in cooking, food processing and bakery showed an increasing trend, especially after China started to recover from the movement restrictions. Malaysia's export of palm oil to China was initially affected due to breakdowns of supply chain logistics and business suspensions. However, the country recovered from the recession and the demands are expected to grow further.
ABSTRACT
Domestic and international mobility restrictions helped to reduce the numbers of confirmed Covid-19 cases until the end of 2021. Indonesia entered 2022 with caution, however, as Omicron cases began to rise. Recent success in managing the pandemic has coincided with what might be the start of an economic recovery, in no small part driven by high commodity prices—mainly for coal and palm oil—improving the fiscal and trade balances. The new tax harmonisation law is intended to lower the fiscal deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2023, and a carbon tax will be implemented in April 2022—starting with a cap-and-tax scheme for coal power plants, before more sectors are included. Agriculture has played a key role in helping Indonesia to weather the pandemic, with the sector’s growth supporting employment and food consumption during the crisis. A resurgence in the palm oil price, together with rising agricultural wages and a narrowing of the labour productivity gap, has helped the agriculture sector lead the recovery, but concerns remain over the sector’s environmental footprint. Against recent food and environmental policy commitments, a renewed focus on increasing on-farm yields is a critical area for policy. We conclude with some reflections on the national palm oil replanting program and how better benefits might be delivered for smallholders and the environment.
ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic had a global impact since it was first discovered in late 2019, in Wuhan, China. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), COVID-19 has affected over 179 million people and killed approximately 3.9 million people in more than 200 countries across the globe (WHO,2021). This outbreak has not only affected people’s lives but also disrupted global supply chains. It has shown significant effects on businesses, consumers, and the global economy. Fear of the virus has led to many companies scrambling to respond regarding employees’ job security, ensuring supply security, risk mitigation strategy, and addressing market uncertainties that are driving down demand. Broadly, the objective of this article is to highlight issues faced by the upstream palm oil supply chain actors during this pandemic. Based on the problem, the study concluded that some forms of actions (short-term & long-term) have been proposed to ensure an agile palm oil supply chain.