4 min read
The palm oil industry has historically led to significant ecosystem depletion through deforestation, peat drainage, excessive agrochemical use, and biodiversity loss.
For companies, these landscapes are a source of long-term compliance risk, and for farmers, especially smallholders, this is a cycle of soil degradation and income vulnerability.
But palm oil remains a controversial raw material.
Until recently, regenerative agriculture (Regen Ag) wasn’t part of the palm oil conversation, not for companies, and certainly not for farmers. Unlike other crops, oil palm has rarely been viewed through a regenerative lens. That’s changing.
There’s growing interest, from within Earthworm Foundation and from our partners, in the question: What would regeneration look like in palm landscapes? How can this approach help address past impacts and build long-term resilience for plantations, smallholders, and supply chains?
We don’t yet have all the answers. But we’ve decided it’s time to start exploring.
We’re beginning by drawing on lessons from other crops and regions where Earthworm has been more active in defining and implementing Regen Ag approaches, such as annual crop production systems in Europe and the U.S. and perennial crops like cocoa in Latin America or Africa.
The goal is not to replicate those models but to adapt what makes sense, understand what to measure and prioritise, and consider how outcomes could look different in palm oil.
To help us shape this thinking, a Scientific Committee is currently working with us to define a regenerative agriculture framework specific to palm oil. That work is still in progress, but in the meantime;
While the conceptual framework is under development, we are also engaging directly in palm landscapes to promote practices that align with regenerative principles, even if we don’t yet call them that formally.
In Peru and Mexico, for example, we’re working with farmers in:
- Protecting their soil.
- Increasing carbon returns to soil.
- Reducing synthetic N fertilisation (nitrogen fertilisation).
- Restoring degraded areas with species of agronomic interest.
These efforts are early-stage. Our role is to facilitate learning, to listen to what farmers are already doing, to document changes on the ground, and to organise ourselves, internally and with partners, to track outcomes as they emerge.
For companies, regenerative agriculture in palm offers a tangible way to meet Scope 3 emissions targets, biodiversity goals, and human rights commitments. But to work, it must be grounded in local realities.
This is why we work side by side with suppliers, cooperatives, and farmers to co-design solutions.
In Tomé Açu, Brazil, for example, we are seeing how to combine the approach and methodology proposed by the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform's Regenerating Together Framework, which speaks to the industry, with our Holistic Farm Plan methodology, which we use as the entry point and foundation for working together with farmers.
Palm oil’s story doesn’t have to be one of loss.
It can be one of leadership, of companies and farmers coming together to regenerate degraded soils, diversify incomes, and secure supply chains for the long term.
We’re not positioning Earthworm Foundation as having achieved Regen Ag in palm oil, not yet. But we believe this is the right moment to start the journey, to bring together science, practice, and supply chain realities. And to help supply chain actors bring soil science to plantations, farmer voices to boardrooms, and long-term incentives to supply chains.
And if regeneration is to be used in the palm oil chain, it needs to be developed in partnership with farmers, companies, and the land itself.
We’re ready to give it a go.
