Sustainable palm oil production in Honduras: myth or reality?

Honduras is currently positioned as one of the main palm oil-producing and exporting countries in Latin America. According to FAO, in 2018, Honduras produced 650 thousand MT of palm oil and generated US$400 million in export revenues. Palm oil is produced on over 135,000 hectares of land in the country, mostly in the coastal valleys of northern Honduras. Although it is an industry dominated by only a few corporations, most of the production in Honduras still occurs on small-scale farms. Within areas where it has been adopted, the oil palm industry has become an important driver of land use change, which has followed a trajectory of replacing banana plantations rather than forest lands. Government interventions through targeted policies have had an important part in stimulating the expansion of the industry. These policies are largely justified based on the perceived value of the crop as an engine of economic development. Consequently, oil palm expansion and related supportive policies are often seen through an economic lens only, while questions of who benefits and who controls the industry are often overlooked. The significant social and environmental impacts of the crop’s expansion are given limited attention. Using assemblage theory as an analytical framework, the sustainability of the palm oil sector in Honduras is examined to understand power differentials and the effect of the economic, social, and environmental dimensions.