Fertiliser Investment Key To Manage Climate Impacts On Palm Oil -- MPOB
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 12 (Bernama) -- Fertiliser investment is crucial to ensuring Malaysia’s palm oil sector is protected from lower yields due to climate headwinds.
Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) Head of Production Economics and Techno-Economics Research Unit, Nur Nadia Kamil, said that extreme weather events, both El Nino and La Nina, are becoming more frequent and more intense, and will create a double challenge for the palm oil industry.
"In the oil palm context, both ends of the spectrum matter. Heat and drought during El Nino reduces yield, but so do the excessive rainfall during La Nina," she said during the Palm Oil Economic Review and Outlook Seminar here today.
Nur Nadia stated that from a yield perspective, both El Nino and La Nina can result in losses. She highlighted that during the El Nino phase, the later stages of fruit bunch development, which occur closer to harvest, tend to be the most affected.
“Because these stages are near the harvest time, the impact on yield becomes apparent relatively quickly,” she said, adding that the primary damage from El Nino is around 65 per cent in the first year, and some enduring stress into the second year, but the main heat basically comes early.
On the other hand, La Nina brings a prolonged wet condition, and the stress builds up more gradually, affecting earlier stages of bunch development.
"When the earlier stages are affected, the yield impact takes longer than it should, and that is why La Nina impacts the temperature into the second year, rather than being concentrated in the first year," said Nur Nadia.
She elaborated that during a strong El Nino event -- with the multivariate El Nino Index (MEI) of +2.0 -- a cumulative loss of about 2.3 tonnes of fresh fruit palm oil equivalent (FFPE) per hectare over a 24-month period is expected.
“This translates to roughly a seven per cent reduction in the average yield,” said Nur Nadia.
Meanwhile, for La Nina with a MEI of -1, the losses are slightly smaller, but still significant, where the FFPE yield declines by about 1.83 tonnes per hectare, or close to five per cent.
“Hence, fertiliser investment is one of the possible buffers against climate stress. During strong La Nina events, estates with no fertiliser investment experienced cumulative losses of almost there tonnes per hectare over two years.
"In contrast, estates that had some level of fertiliser expenses were better able to cushion the impact of support in yield recovery," she said.
-- BERNAMA