In the third and final episode of Dialogue Earth's podcast series, Palm Oil Frontiers, Gayathri Vaidyanathan takes to the streets of Chennai in southern India to find out how much people know about palm oil.

India is the world’s largest importer of palm oil, and the second largest consumer after Indonesia. The commodity is widely used as a cooking oil in restaurants (especially at the street- and fast-food end of the industry) and low-income households, as well as in the production of processed foods. Despite its prevalence, however, many people in India are unaware of its presence, let alone the environmental damage the expansion of oil palm plantations in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia has caused. This lack of awareness means there’s very little market pressure to purchase palm oil from sustainable sources. Indeed, only 2% of India’s palm oil is sustainably produced, according to an internal estimate by the Sustainable Palm Oil Coalition of India. What can be done to change this? Do consumers really have an important role to play, or should the onus be on government and industry? And what has India’s increasing problem with health issues such as diabetes and obesity got to do with it?

For more, see the show notes: https://dialogue.earth/en/food/palm-oil-frontiers-hidden-in-plain-sight/

CREDITS
Producer and host: Gayathri Vaidyanathan
Commissioning editor: Lizi Hesling
Sound design: Alyssa Moxley
Research: Gayathri Vaidyanathan, RK Srividya
Art work: Nahal Sheikh
Thanks to: Josie Phillips, Jessica Aldred

 MUSIC 
“Uncertain Ground” by Blue Dot Sessions, licence: CC BY NC
“The Telling” by Blue Dot Sessions, licence: ⁠CC BY NC⁠
“Hermes Gray” by Blue Dot Sessions, licence: ⁠⁠CC BY NC⁠⁠
“Evidence Room” by Blue Dot Sessions, licence: ⁠⁠⁠CC BY NC
“Di Breun” by Blue Dot Sessions, licence: ⁠⁠⁠⁠CC BY NC⁠⁠