棕櫚油在食品和生活用品成分中十分常見

棕櫚油在食品和生活用品成分中十分常見

If you read ingredient labels, you'll see palm and palm kernel oil everywhere: in bread, chocolate, frozen pizza -- even soap, toothpaste and cosmetics. No wonder the oil palm tree, whose fruit and seeds are used to produce these oils, is in tremendous demand as a crop in West and Central Africa and Southeast Asia.

如果你閱讀成分標(biāo)簽，你會發(fā)現(xiàn)棕櫚油和棕櫚仁油隨處可見：面包、巧克力、冷凍披薩——甚至肥皂、牙膏和化妝品。難怪油棕櫚樹，其果實(shí)和種子被用來生產(chǎn)這些油，作為一種作物在西非和中非和東南亞有著巨大的需求。

But while the trees are considered a highly productive source of vegetable oil, farming them can carry a heavy environmental impact. As large farms clear land to make room for oil palms, deforestation and forest fires can occur, threatening biodiversity.

但是，雖然這種樹被認(rèn)為是一種高產(chǎn)的植物油來源，但種植它們可能會帶來嚴(yán)重的環(huán)境影響。隨著大型農(nóng)場為種植油棕櫚騰出空間，可能會發(fā)生砍伐森林和森林火災(zāi)，威脅到生物多樣性。

Liberian entrepreneur Mahmud Johnson has come up with a possible solution. He is installing milling machines in rural communities to help small local growers increase their yields on wild-growing trees, allowing them to produce the oil more sustainably and to generate enough earnings to stay independent.

利比里亞企業(yè)家馬哈茂德·約翰遜想出了一個(gè)可能的解決方案。他正在農(nóng)村社區(qū)安裝磨銑機(jī)，幫助當(dāng)?shù)氐男》N植者提高野生樹木的產(chǎn)量，使他們能夠更可持續(xù)地生產(chǎn)油，并產(chǎn)生足夠的收入來保持獨(dú)立。

The global palm oil market is staggeringly large, with the industry valued at $62 billion in 2016, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Palm oil is found in roughly half of all supermarket products, says the UN, as well as in biofuels.

據(jù)聯(lián)合國環(huán)境規(guī)劃署的數(shù)據(jù)，全球棕櫚油市場大得驚人，2016年該行業(yè)價(jià)值620億美元。聯(lián)合國稱，大約一半的超市產(chǎn)品中含有棕櫚油，生物燃料中也含有棕櫚油。

The oil palm is grown in 43 countries and accounts for 10 percent of the world's permanent crop land -- producing 70 million tons of palm oil each year.

這種油棕生長在43個(gè)國家，占世界永久耕地的10%，每年可生產(chǎn)7000萬噸棕櫚油。

Since the oil palm yields four to ten times more vegetable oil per hectare than any other crop, there is no obvious alternative, according to The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Unilever has been exploring harvesting oil from the seeds of the Allanblackia tree, and if demand keeps rising, it could one day be a significant part of a sustainable global oil market, according to the IUCN.

據(jù)國際自然保護(hù)聯(lián)盟(IUCN)稱，由于油棕每公頃的植物油產(chǎn)量是其他作物的4至10倍，因此沒有明顯的替代品。據(jù)世界自然保護(hù)聯(lián)盟(IUCN)稱，聯(lián)合利華一直在探索從阿蘭布拉克亞樹的種子中收獲油，如果需求持續(xù)上升，總有一天它將成為全球可持續(xù)油市場的重要組成部分。

The oil is excellent for producing spreads and grows wild in Ghana and Tanzania, but at a much smaller scale than palm oil.

這種油非常適合在加納和坦桑尼亞種植，但規(guī)模比棕櫚油小得多。

Meantime, Johnson thinks he can help feed the tremendous demand for palm oils in a sustainable way.

與此同時(shí)，約翰遜認(rèn)為他可以以一種可持續(xù)的方式幫助滿足對棕櫚油的巨大需求。

Johnson grew up in Liberia, on the west coast of Africa, where his aunt collected palm oil from communities to sell to retailers. As a teen, he interned at the Liberian president's office collecting data on international development aid, before spending four years studying economics at Dartmouth College and taking part in leadership and development programs.

約翰遜在非洲西海岸的利比里亞長大，他的姑媽從當(dāng)?shù)厣鐓^(qū)收集棕櫚油，然后賣給零售商。十幾歲時(shí)，他曾在利比里亞總統(tǒng)辦公室實(shí)習(xí)，收集有關(guān)國際發(fā)展援助的數(shù)據(jù)。之后，他在達(dá)特茅斯學(xué)院學(xué)習(xí)了四年經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)，并參加了領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力和發(fā)展項(xiàng)目。

While looking for an entrepreneurial opportunity to pursue back home, he saw government estimates that up to half of palm fruit is wasted during harvest, and a third during processing. At age 22, he returned to Liberia to start a company, J-Palm, to address the issue.

在尋找回國創(chuàng)業(yè)的機(jī)會時(shí)，他看到政府估計(jì)棕櫚果實(shí)在收獲期間浪費(fèi)了一半，在加工過程中浪費(fèi)了三分之一。22歲時(shí)，他回到利比里亞，創(chuàng)辦了一家名為J-Palm的公司，以解決這個(gè)問題。

"In most West African countries, palm oil trees grow in the wild," says Johnson, now 28. "Most of the smallholder farmers who have access to those trees don't have access to process palm oil."

“在大多數(shù)西非國家，棕櫚油樹在野外生長，”現(xiàn)年28歲的約翰遜說。“大多數(shù)可以種植這些樹的小農(nóng)卻無法加工棕櫚油。”

Farmers were using inefficient extraction methods, he says, using sticks to pound the fruit for palm oil. They also were throwing away the kernel, which could instead be processed to make palm kernel oil.

他說，農(nóng)民們使用的是低效的提取方法，用棒子敲打果實(shí)來提煉棕櫚油。他們還扔掉了原本可以加工成棕櫚仁油的果仁。