Global and local sustainable certification systems: Factors influencing RSPO and Thai-GAP adoption by oil palm smallholder farmers in Thailand

Abstract

This paper investigates the factors that influence the adoption of RSPO and Thai-GAP certification by oil palm smallholder farmers in Thailand. A random sample of 77 RSPO certified, 108 non-certified RSPO, 87 Thai-GAP certified, and 67 non-certified Thai-GAP smallholder farmers were interviewed to investigate the factors explaining the RSPO and Thai-GAP scheme adoption, respectively. The logit model was used to analyse the relationships between the adoption and the decision-making factors of the farmers. The results show that membership of farmer groups, the goal of the scheme, and trust in the scheme are the most significant factors affecting the adoption of RSPO certification. Scheme payments have a negative influence on adoption. In case of Thai-GAP, the results show the scheme payment, the image, concerns about the quality of land and water, and trust in the scheme are the most significant factors affecting the adoption. Finally, these findings suggest new factors may be attributed to several issues, including trust in the scheme, membership of farmer groups, the scheme’s goal, and trust in the scheme are the most significant. Designing and extension in influencing factors may play multiple roles in driving smallholder farmers to adopt sustainable certification schemes. This finding repeats that the usability of sustainable certification schemes in developing countries needs to be mobilised around a particular socio-cultural context. Including, understanding the factors affecting smallholder farmers’ intention to adopt Thai-GAP or RSPO certification is very important to plan and promote these schemes among other farmers and transform the current cultivation practices into more sustainable palm oil production.

The Dynamics of The Role Oil Palm Smallholders in Implementing ISPO Certification: Looking Back to Moving Forward

“…Of the 100 articles indexed by Scopus, they can be grouped into 3 clusters which can be identified by color node each keyword. Cluster 1 is symbolized in red and includes terms related to studies with keywords Farmer [1][2][3][4][5][6], Standard [7][8][9][10], Impact [11][12][13] , Access [14], ISPO [15][16][17][18][19] it can be interpreted that the studies on the cluster referred to one and the other study keywords often intersect and tend to have links, for example research with studies on financial and benefits certification on one the articles in the study cover a lot of discussion related to the keywords impact, farmer and standards Cluster 2, which is symbolized in yellow, consists of studies that tend to lead to one keyword, namely RSPO certification [20][21][22][23][24][25][26], Cluster 3, which is symbolized in blue, consists of Oil Palm studies [27,28], Deforestation, Plantation, Biodiversity and Cluster 4 which is symbolized in green consists of MSPO certification studies, Industry, Independent Smallholder, Implementation. From the visualization of the network visualization, there is an interesting thing, namely that there is a high link to the study with the keywords of sustainable oil palm plantation certification namely ISPO, RSPO, and MSPO during the period from 2006 to 2023…”

Farmers’ Perceptions of Sustainable Palm Oil Certification in Jambi Province

“…In addition, the high volume of CPO exports also made a high contribution to the Indonesian economy, especially foreign exchange, increased Gross Domestic Product (GDP), as well as increased employment [2], [3]. The development of the palm oil industry is also followed by increasingly high global market demands [4], [5]. Global market demands for environmental, social and economic aspects are becoming increasingly widespread and have an impact on the Indonesian palm oil trade.…”