This bulletin is the first in a series of bulletins about the agricultural plants that are replacing traditional agriculture in Chiapas. The Mexican and Chiapan governments promote these foreign products as a favor to the transnational corporations. The foreign products in many cases harm the indigenous and rural populations.

At this time, after gathering information from diverse sources, we write about the African palm, which is used for its oil. African palm oil is used to manufacture food products, medicines, fibres and brooms. It’s sap is used to make wine and the waste from palm oil purification is used as cattle feed.  Palm originates in East Africa, but is now cultivated in many parts of the world.  In 1997, more than 6.5 million hectares were planted in countries like Malaysia, (which generates 50% of world production), Indonesia, Nigeria, Guinea, Thailand, New Guinea, the Philippines, Cambodia, India, the Solomon Islands, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Gambia, Liberia, Senegal, Tanzania, Equatorial Guinea, Burundi, Togo, Uganda, etc.

Producing countries in Latin America include Ecuador, Colombia, Brasil, Peru, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Surinam, Guiana and México. In Mexico, 4,000 hectares are cultivated, solely in the state of Chiapas. Some 3,000 hectares were planted in 1997. (The Bitter Fruit of the African Palm. Global Movement for Tropical Rainforests. August 2001. For more information visit the website: www.wrn.org.uy)

The cultivation of African palm has spread internationally because it provides the chance for indebted governments to earn foreign exchange by exporting the plant.  Palm can also be a profitable investment for the international corporate sector.  The corporations that dominate the world market in African palm are Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Kenkel, Cognis and Cargill.  These corporations enjoy the low cost of labor and land in the indebted countries as well as the lack of effective environmental regulations.   The multilateral banks have also been very enthusiastic about providing financial support for the cultivation of this crop.  The crop also boasts a short time period between planting and harvest. Finally, there is an ever-widening world market for African palm.

Governments and businesses present the cultivation of palm as a solution to an array of problems in the countryside and in the regions where they promote this type of agriculture.  They argue that it generates jobs, wealth, infrastructure, education, etc. When the programs have met with rejection in various countries, the corporations promise a series of social program in order to win the support of local population.

Palm production has negative socio-environmental impacts because of the production model it’s advocates employ.   In the majority of cases, the production is implemented by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, (IMF), the United Nations Development Program, or large transnational corporations which benefit from the plant, because it is a profitable crop oriented towards the export market. 

The negative environmental impacts stem from the fact that African palm requires large plots of land.  Many production projects have led to the eviction of small farmers and indigenous people, therefore violating the right to land ownership, and the most elemental rights of inhabitants of rural communities.  They have also caused the loss of traditional crops, and with that the loss of food sovereignty, collective-based community economies, and many facets of ancestral cultures. Palm production also generates the destruction of tropical rain forests and diverse types of trees and fine woods and endangers the animals that inhabit these regions.  The large amounts of agricultural chemicals and fumigations used in production lead to the destruction of biodiversity in general, and negatively affect the health of the inhabitants of the zones.

The deforestation caused by this type of cultivation leaves the earth exposed to solar rays and rain.  This causes erosion, compaction and impoverishment of the soil. Palm cultivation contributes to climactic change, deforestation, and global warming, that combined with other deforestation processes leads to droughts. In countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, the same corporations that grow palm promote forest fires to prepare the land for cultivation.

Chiapas plays an important role as a producer of this prime resource on an international level. There has been significant investment of transnational corporations that push a policy of crop substitution of traditional crops with crops for export.  Therefore, Chiapas agricultural policy has been oriented towards pressuring campesions to produce crops that they are unfamiliar with producing, often through the conditional granting of government credits.  This is how Chiapan campesinos began to cultivate crops such as African palm, eucalyptus,  rubber, cashew nuts, sesame, marigold, cardamom, macadamia, vanilla, plums, coconut, sapote (mamey) and watermelon. Just to give one example, during the agricultural cycle of 1990-91, Chiapas was the second greatest corn producing state in Mexico, with annual plantings of 313,000 to 500,000 hectares, producing 1, 647, 476 tons of corn (Annual  Cultivation in México. INEGI. VII Agricultural Census 1997. Pag. 269). After NAFTA was signed and put into effect, Chiapas occupied third place with respect to corn production nationally, due to the importation of U.S. corn which benefited the Monsanto corporation, the world’s largest producer of transgenic corn..  This decrease in corn production due to international policy changed Chiapan agriculture drastically. 

Promotion of African palm began in Chiapas during  Governor General Absalón Castellanos Domínguez’s term (1982-88), in the municipalities of Villacomaltitlán, Escuintla, Acapetahua, Mazatán, Acacoyagua, Tapachula. The diversity of climates in the region allowed cultivation to spread during the 1990's in other regions and municipalities like Salto de Agua, Playas de Catazajá, Chilón, Tumbalá and Palenque.  In 1997, just along the coast of Chiapas, 3,000 hectares were planted that supplied the extraction plants located in Villacomaltitlán and Acapetahua.

According to the statistical office of the Secretary of State of Chiapas in Tapachula alone, 7,816 hectares were planted in 2000, of which 890 were produced by irrigation and 6,926 temporal.  Of these, 2,748 hectares were in production, 890 by irrigation and 1,858 temporal.  The total production volume at this time was 39,362 tons, of these 13,350 were from irrigation planting, 26,012 from temporal planting.  In total these generated capital of 18,807,000 million pesos annually.

In his annual address of 1998, governor Roberto Albores Guillén stated that his government secured support for palm oil production through the investment of 31,100,000 pesos with which the government attended to some 5,700 hectacres. Guillén hoped to be able to support another 5,050 hectacres for palm oil production in 1999, which he hoped would compensate for the national oil deficit, which in that year reached 800,000 tons. The Governor also informed that in addition to the two extraction plants already operating in Chiapas, two more plants were planned for the same locations.  He also established an agreement with an industrial canning company. (Informe Anual del Gobierno Estatal, 1998. Pag. 179)

Chiapas, as an agricultural state, has been one of the states most severely affected by the crisis in the countryside brought on by the fall in the prices of coffee, corn, sorghum, pineapple, beans and other products on the international market. This crisis has led to a constant migration of rural workers to the north of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. The local and federal governments have taken advantage of this crisis situation in order to promote the planting of African palm in Chiapas. The government tells the campesinos that, “Corn and beans are no good because their price is so low, and the alternative is the African palm." The government also forces campesinos to accept the Program of Certification of Communal Rights, (PROCEDE), by withholding agricultural credits, and this has been denounced by many rural communities.  Subsequently, the small farmers rent or sell their lands to large producers and become salaried workers on their own land, which is deforested, eroded and contaminated by agricultural chemicals and pesticides.

In fact, investment interest lies in the varied climate, abundant natural resources and cheap labor along the border with Central America. Companies employ undocumented field workers for manual labor at much lower costs than local Chiapan labor in profitable enterprises.  In this way, agro-business companies yield large profits. It is important to note that the Guatemalan consulate in Tapachula, Chiapas has intervened in order to pressure land owners to pay the salaries of Central American workers who they had refused to pay in various occasions.

In Chiapas, it is not surprising that previous and president governments of Chiapas have promoted the planting of African palm.  Nor is it a surprise that the Ambassador of Malaysia constantly visits the coast of Chiapas, knowing that the business owners of this country control the international production and market for palm.

Nevertheless, this production has not been the panacea that the government promotes it to be:  as the market for other agricultural products fall into a crisis, the market for palm has begun to have it’s own problems.  Palm oil production on an international level has begun to compete with other oil products such as sorghum, peanut, corn and soya bean.  Even more complicated is the production of genetically modified palm, which will bring new problems and effects on the population that produces and consumes palm oil. 

In order to lower prices, transnational companies promote the expansion of palm planting on a massive scale, knowing that African palm oil is cheaper to produce than soya bean, sorghum or sunflower. With this policy, the transnationals achieve massive consumption of palm oil and oblige other corporations to lower their prices.  In this way, African palm oil has become the point of reference to fix international oil prices.

Of course, this has also had effects in Chiapas.  For example, the producers of Acapetahua began to report in 2000 that they found themselves, “At the mercy of the buyers, who are the bosses of the extraction plants, who pay whatever price they want to for each ton"...In addition, they claimed that because the government is the main promoter of palm production, it should also rectify the situation and guarantee a fair price.

On the other hand, during the administrations of Julio César Ruiz Ferro and Roberto Albores Guillen, in the northern region of Chiapas, in Palenque, Salto de Agua and Playas de Catazajá, the rural groups that benefited from these projects belonged to SOCAMA (Solidaridad Campesino Magisterial), the paramilitary group “Peace and Justice”, a group that today is called the Union of Indigenous Agricultural and Forest Communities (UCIAF) and other rural groups loyal to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).  These projects also fell into crisis because they were unprepared to control the pests including rats that destroyed many of the plants.

The planting of African palm in Chiapas and in other parts of the world will not improve the living conditions of the rural poor: it does not provide escape from poverty. To the contrary, palm cultivation benefits the most powerful international businessmen, to the detriment of the poor and the degradation of the natural environment.

The problem is not just cultivation of African palm alone, but rather the industrial model that implements it’s cultivation for the benefit of transnational corporations. African palm could be cultivated in an environmentally manageable way that satisfies the needs of rural workers. Even better, palm cultivation could strengthen rural workers and could be implemented with the logic of rural development, instead of being managed just for corporate profit.

Note: If you wish to be placed on a list to receive this English version of the Bulletin, or the Spanish, or both, please direct a request to: ciepac@laneta.apc.org and indicate whether you wish to receive the bulletin in plain text or as a Word 7 for Windows 95 attachment.

Note: If you use this information, cite the source and our email address. We are grateful to the persons and institutions who have given us their comments on these Bulletins. CIEPAC, A.C. is a non-government and non-profit organization, and your support is necessary for us to be able to continue offering you this news and analysis service. If you would like to contribute, in any amount, we would infinitely appreciate your remittance to the bank account in the name of:

CIEPAC, A.C.
Bank: Banamex
Account number: 7049672 Sucursal 386
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México.
You will also need to use an ABA number:
BNMXMXMM

Thank you! CIEPAC

Telephone:
in México: 01 967 674 5168
from outside Mexico:: +52 967 674 5168