In Search of Cheap Food

What's the connection between a Minnetonka based company, Papua New Guinea and world food prices? Palm oil is the connection, it's the most widely used vegetable oil in the world. It's in a lot of foods that we don't even realize, cereal, breakfast bars, snacks and more. And 30% of it comes from the islands of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Cargill, one of Minnesota's largest companies is one of the largest producers of Palm oil in the world. They have plantations on the island of Papua New Guinea where they hire 15,000 workers for their plants seasonally. They extract the oil and then ship it to the US where it is processed and then put into foods on grocery sheaves in all but 3 countries. Palms produce more oil per acre than any other plant like Canola or soy by up to 50%. The large plantations feature rows of tall 4 to 6 year old palms and workers who walk up and down the rows with long poles to snip off the fruits and send them tumbling to the ground where the oil from their kernels is extracted. For hundreds of years New Guineans lived like they had for 1,000 of years as subsistence farmers. The island residence speak over 800 distinct languages and has the world's 3rd largest rain forest. In the 1960's the US government and World Bank decided to introduce a cash crop to the island to improve their standard of living. Now with more worldwide food shortages and an increase in food prices Cargill and other local farmers are expanding their plantations into the treasured rain forest. The company and the farmers argue they do this to improve their lifestyles and send their children to school but as the prices increase so will the amount of deforested rain forest that can never be recovered. It is a recurring problem that sometimes feels so far away for us, that is until your next visit to the grocery store or bowl of General Mill's cereal.