Palm Oil: Industrial Destruction, Regenerative Promise

Published: March 2, 2021, 7 a.m.

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Palm oil is everywhere\\u2014it\\u2019s in chocolate bars, packaged foods, even beauty care products and biofuels. But its ubiquity has come at the expense of forest communities whose lands have been stolen and subsequently destroyed, fueling human rights abuses and the climate crisis. This is episode 3 of Nestle\\u2019s KitKat Unwrapped, and in it we\\u2019re exploring the slippery business of palm oil.

In this episode, we speak with Robin Averbeck, Forest Program Director at Rainforest Action Network (RAN), as they describe how Nestle and other Big Food companies have turned palm oil into one of the leading global drivers of deforestation. Then, we speak with Safianu Moro, Managing Director of Serendipalm Company Limited in Ghana. Here, small-scale farmers are growing palm oil regeneratively, on small plots of land that are rich in biodiversity. Taken together, their stories provide a striking contrast and a strong reminder: like most crops, palm oil is not inherently destructive or exploitative\\u2014the industrialized food system is.

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