Dendê oil is closely associated with Bahian cuisine, which traditionally uses it in its recipes, such as acarajé and vatapá. However, the state of Bahia is not the largest producer of what is also known as palm oil: around 90% of the national production comes from the Amazon, more specifically, from the state of Pará.
In addition to its use in cookery, palm oil has several other commercial uses, such as the production of cosmetics, cleaning products, biodiesel, and health care. Given all these possibilities, dendê oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world, accounting for around 35% of total consumption. The dendê palm is a highly productive plant, yielding four to five tons of oil per hectare more than other species, such as sunflower and soybeans.
However, the monoculture of dendê oil allows for social and environmental impacts, causing deforestation, pollution from the use of pesticides, loss of biodiversity, changes in the way of life of traditional populations and an increase in greenhouse gas emissions. With the growth in global demand for oil and the consequent expansion of production areas, the product has become an important agent of deforestation worldwide, especially in Southeast Asia, which accounts for around 80% of global production, but also in northern Brazil.
For this very reason, Brazil has a Sustainable Palm Oil Production Program, which encourages the production of dendê oil on degraded lands, avoiding the opening of new areas for cultivation.
AFS
In addition to what the national program covers, other initiatives aim to make palm oil production even more sustainable. This is the case of cultivation in agroforestry systems (AFS), which associate oil palm with other agricultural crops in the same management unit, in spatial arrangements or temporal sequences of crops.
“In the agroforestry system, there are ecological and economic interactions between the different components, and this adds to the dendê oil. These aggregations of cultures are more resilient, can mitigate greenhouse gases, have greater biodiversity, provide a better microclimate within the system and reduce the arduousness of farmers’ work due to thermal comfort. These systems also diversify income and, therefore, provide better food security,” explains agronomist Gilson Matos, a professor at the Federal Rural University of the Amazon (UFRA) and a researcher of dendê oil AFS.
According to him, production in the agroforestry system is not based on peak harvests, as in monoculture, but in continuous management throughout the year. “In the case of dendê palm system, production can last up to 25 or 30 years. And the advantage is that you can adapt it to the local reality of the families,” he adds.
Pará is the national leader in production
As the national leader in production, dendê oil is an important crop for the state of Pará, which has the municipalities of Tailândia, Tomé-Açu, Moju and Acará as the largest producers. “Pará has, by far, the widest planted area in the country, reaching close to 230 thousand hectares, concentrated mainly in the northeast of the state. This generates a significant absorption of local labor in the cultivation of the dendê palm tree and in the extraction of its oil”, points out Matos.
According to a survey by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) [Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics] for 2023, palm oil is cultivated in 30 municipalities in Pará, with an annual production of approximately 2.9 million tons.
RESEARCH
In Tomé-Açu, experiments with dendê oil in AFS, in tandem dynamics with other agricultural and forestry species, have shown promising results. For 17 years, a partnership between the cosmetics company Natura, the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa) [Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation] and the Cooperativa Agrícola Mista de Tomé Açu (CAMTA) [Tomé Açu Mixed Agricultural Cooperative] has been studying cultivation in agroforestry systems, attesting its efficiency and promoting ecosystem services to the surrounding area.
One of the participating families and pioneers of the initiative is the Suzuki family, a traditional producer of black pepper. The pepper crop is maintained, but members of the new generation invest not only in other crops, but also in the use of more sustainable techniques.
One of the representatives of the Suzuki family, environmental engineer Patrícia Mie works on the family's 400-hectare property. The dendê oil AFS, currently covering 49 hectares, combines oil palm with more than 15 native species, such as cocoa, açaí, andiroba, pink ipê, guanandi and white tachi. The producers also introduced Brazilian stingless bees to help with pollination and to take advantage of honey production.
According to Patrícia, Embrapa studies have proven that dendê palms grown in AFS are more productive, in a smaller planted area: while in monoculture they reach 139 kilograms of fruit bunches per plant, in AFS they reach 180 kilograms. The oil yield is also higher, from 18 to 22% to 24.7%.
ECONOMY
Patrícia reports that the family adopted AFS after their main crop suffered a major crop failure due to a disease, but that it was also inspired by the observation of the intercropping of riverside communities in the region. According to the specialist, the system provides income at different times, depending on the harvest of medium and long-term species.
“The system brings economic benefits to the producer, who is not dependent on the harvest of a single product in a single period. If you have cocoa, açaí or taperebá in the same area along with oil palm, you have production throughout the year of each of these species. This is also important for food security, because it is possible to insert species for the rural producer's own consumption in these areas. In family farming, this is essential”, she points out.
In addition, Patrícia points out that the coexistence of different crops works as a pest control, since diseases tend to attack only certain species, which reduces losses for the farmer. “The trees reduce the temperature and provide shade during this period of extreme heat. We also noticed benefits for the soil, since the deposition of organic matter allows the cycling of nutrients, making the soil and production healthier and increasing the carbon stock in the soil. We also observed the developed biodiversity, with several types of mushrooms, the presence of birds and other animals that take advantage of the system as an ecological corridor. And it has benefits for the quality of life of the producers themselves”, highlights the forest engineer.
Traceability guarantees socio-environmental standards
To guarantee transparency, regularity and sustainability of the dendê chain in the state, the government of Pará has implemented the Public Policy for the Protection and Development of the Dendê Production Chain. The regulation establishes that all areas where dendê oil is cultivated, processed and transported must be registered with the Agência de Defesa Agropecuária do estado (ADEPARÁ) [state’s Agricultural Defense Agency] and establishes the Guia de Trânsito Vegetal (GTV) [Plant Transit Guide] as a tool to monitor the movements of the productions.
According to Joselena Tavares, Plant Inspection and Classification Manager at ADEPARÁ, the goal is to ensure that the product is monitored from harvest to destination, proving its origin and ensuring that cultivation occurs within the socio-environmental standards required by Brazilian legislation and international agreements. “In addition to strengthening phytosanitary surveillance, the policy aims to create an official database on oil palm cultivation in Pará, which will allow the government and agents in the production sector to make more precise and strategic decisions,” explains the agricultural engineer.
BENEFITS
For Joselena Tavares, traceability offers legal security and transparency and adds value to production, especially for family farmers. “As it attests to the environmental and legal compliance of cultivated areas, the measure facilitates access to more demanding markets, which require proof of good practices,” she points out.
Joselena states that the policy acts directly in the fight against deforestation and in the preservation of native areas. “By allowing the monitoring of registered areas, it contributes to territorial planning and to the control of production growth in sensitive areas. In addition, it meets the requirements of international agreements that provide for the tracking of agricultural products as a way of mitigating environmental impacts, placing Pará in a prominent position in the global sustainability agenda,” she says.
According to the director of Plant Protection and Inspection at ADEPARÁ, Lucionila Pimentel, the initiative guarantees not only control, but also helps the sector with growing in an organized, inclusive and environmentally responsible manner. “We are on the eve of COP 30 and we want to show the world that it is possible to produce responsibly, with social justice and respect for the environment,” concludes the manager.
INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERSHIP
The production of Liberal Amazon is one of the initiatives of the Technical Cooperation Agreement between the Liberal Group and the Federal University of Pará. The articles involving research from UFPA are revised by professionals from the academy. The translation of the content is also provided by the agreement, through the research project ET-Multi: Translation Studies: multifaces and multisemiotics.
