Drought greatest threat to RI's palm oil
Drought greatest threat to RI's palm oil
CHICAGO (Reuter): A searing drought that has fanned forest
fires in Indonesia will do more damage to the region's palm oil
crop than the heavy band of smoke that has engulfed the area,
meteorologists and oilseed sources said.
"The smoke from the fires won't actually affect the crops,
it's a temporary situation," said Mark Weidner, oilseed analyst
with Cargill Investor Services.
"What I think it does show is how dry it is over there and
that will affect next year's palm production," Weidner said.
Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, the southern Philippines and
parts of the Indonesian archipelago have been enveloped in smog
caused by fires burning out of control in huge tracts of bush and
forest in Sumatra and Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the
Borneo island.
The government in Malaysia's Sarawak state on Borneo ordered
businesses, government offices and schools shut and advised
people to stay indoors after the smoke pollution hit record
danger levels.
The region engulfed in smoke is a leading world producer of
oil palm, rubber, cocoa and timber, among other crops.
At least some of the fires have been set by plantation owners
to clear land, officials in Malaysia said. But unusually dry
weather resulting from the El Nino weather pattern has
contributed to the problem, meteorologists said.
"The haze is a product of the dryness," said Peter Leavitt,
president of Weather Services Corp. "The stable atmosphere has
allowed for a considerable amount of bush fires, forest fires and
the like."
"The dryness has strong implication for reduced palm oil
production, but there is a long lag time between the
meteorological event and the crop impact," Leavitt said.
Agronomists in Malaysia said they were not yet seeing any
effects on the oil palm crops but if the haze lingers, it could
slow the ripening process and trim production.
September usually marks the beginning of the rainy season in
Malaysia. But this year, one of the strongest El Nino weather
patterns this century has blocked the moisture, leaving crops in
dire need of rain, Smith Barney meteorologist Jon Davis said.
"Usually what tends to happen is that they don't get a lot of
precipitation during the summer months," Davis said.
"Then they just get bombarded in September and October," David
said. "This year, it just literally hasn't rained yet. That is a
very unusual situation and a very close correlation to El Nino.
"As long as the drought continues, the fires will continue,"
Davis said. "There isn't any indication of them getting into
their normal type of rainfall pattern."
El Nino, a phenomenon of the southern Pacific Ocean, is marked
by a warming of surface sea temperatures off the western coast of
South America. That in turn has been tied to global weather
effects, notably droughts in South Asia.
Meteorologists have called this year's El Nino the strongest
seen since 1982-83, when resultant droughts and flooding in many
countries caused billions of dollars in damage.