The palm tree: A cropscape of monoculture and devouring carbon sinks

India accounts for 17 per cent of world palm oil consumption. Palm oil was initially considered a potential nutrition and environment solution that would replace fossil fuel and trans-fats in the nutrition chain. That promise of replacing fossil fuels and trans-fats is far from met; palm tree monoculture has led to devastation of rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia, which together account for 85 of global palm oil production. Symmetrical rows of palm trees have replaced once-dense irreplaceable habitats of trees and plants. The initial deforestation was induced by European innovation and consumption. India and China have now outstripped European buyers as the main buyers of palm oil.The global cropscape of the palm is reviewed in this paper in the Indian context. Policy appears to encourage palm oil imports in the face of India’s dire agricultural landscape, with negative returns for farmers, a growing nutritionally bereft food chain and exponential deforestation of tropical forests in Indonesia and Malaysia. The paper explores the inherently economically and the socially destructive substitution of ethnically produced and consumed seed oils such as mustard, sesame and coconut. Small farm holdings comprise nearly 85 per cent of India’s total cultivated area. Of about 138 million agricultural farm holdings, 117 million are small and marginal holdings (The Agriculture Census of 2010-11). This paper studies the global supply chain of the palm seed oil that potentially has multi-pronged externalities of destruction of farm income in the importing nation, disruption of nutrition needs and augmenting global emissions through deforestation .Commerce ideally fulfills the needs of communities. Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD theory) by Ostrom (1999) suggests that the social group that has embedded equitable relationships will set policy that requires equal participation and cooperation of all actors involved. Satisfying the consumer with cheaper goods at the cost of the environment and the destruction of incomes of farmers with small land holdings goes against this theory. The author will explore the dynamics of the locally grown seed oils with substitution by palm oil imports, and Indian institutional incentives that foster destruction of forests in SE Asia. The destruction of farm incomes and nutritional deficit will also be discussed.