Economic Assessment of Technology Adoption in Oil Palm Plantations from Colombia

Abstract

Adopting technology regarding agricultural crops has traditionally been associated with high costs. Producers have thus often abstained from adopting better agronomical practices and have consequently lost the benefits they could otherwise have obtained by implementing better criteria for managing their crops.This research builds on results by Ruiz et al., (2017) who found three typologies of oil palm lots, regarding adoption of technology and yields on oil palm crops from Colombia. This work was aimed at evaluating the typologies found by Ruiz et al. (2017) from an economic standpoint by using different economic assessment methods, in order to determine the benefits of technology adoption at the Colombian oil palm agroindustry. The methods used were aimed at estimating: unit cost, net present value (NPV), net income, land use efficiency, generation of income and competitiveness.Results indicate that the cost of producing a ton of fresh fruit bunches from oil palms (FFB) on lots having high adoption of technology was 2.5% to 8% lower when compared to lots having lower adoption of technology (Typologies 2 and 3. respectively). Technology adoption enables greater yearly net income to be obtained in mature oil palm crops in typology 1, than the one obtained at typology 2 and typology 3. The adoption of technology allows the grower to obtain net income equivalent to a legally-established yearly minimum wage (LEYMW), using less land. Finally, it was concluded that at average CPO prices for the period 2005-2015, the Colombian growers that participated in this study, may be competitive at the European market, which is the main destination of Colombian exports of crude palm oil (CPO).

Assessing bio‐oil co‐processing routes as CO2 mitigation strategies in oil refineries

“…Opex was calculated as 15% of the TCR, which included the cost of the feedstock and handling, natural gas, electricity and utilities, fixed cost, and waste disposal. The cost of bio‐oil transport to the refinery was based on current crude palm‐oil transport in Colombia 105 and was estimated as 0.4 €/GJ (see appendix 8.10).…”

“… i The same transport cost was used for each bio‐oil‐production pathway. This cost was based on the average transportation cost in oil‐palm plantations in Colombia (0.4 €/GJ) 77,105 …”

Technical and economic assessment of two harvesting tools for young Elaeis oleifera x E. guineensis oil palms

“…Finally, comparative analyses aimed at estimating production costs in different countries indicate that CPO production in Colombia is 20% more expensive than in Malaysia, mostly due to the economies of scale at the mill, land's opportunity costs, and higher wages (Mosquera et al, 2017a). Therefore, alternatives that contribute to increasing labor productivity, specifically in processes that are more labor-intensive, such as the harvest, must be pursued (Ruiz et al, 2017;Mosquera et al, 2017b). This study focuses on improving labor productivity of oil palm harvesters.…”

Towards a sustainable biobased economy in Colombia: integrated environmental and economic analyses of land use and biomass value chains

“…Definition of the agricultural frontier (MADR, 2018), among others. crop location (soil quality, water) and increasing the crop yield will be important to reduce land-use emission , and also to reduce the CPO production costs ) (Fontanilla, C;Mosquera, M; Ruiz, E; Beltrán, J; Guerrero, 2015) (Mosquera-Montoya et al, 2017).…”

“…COP 2,951/1 USD) (http://www.banrep.gov.co/es/trm). b 8% is the real discount rate used by (Mosquera-Montoya et al, 2017), to which we added the average inflation rate for the period 2010-2017 (4%). This yields the 12% nominal discount rate.…”