Most efforts to improve smallholder palm oil yields focus on technical training, financial support, and sustainability certification. While these interventions help, they miss a deeper truth.

 

Smallholders aren’t failing to invest in fertilizers, labor, or better practices simply because they lack capital or knowledge. Instead, many choose not to—not out of ignorance or laziness, but because they are rationally hedging their risks. They simply don’t have deep pockets to absorb financial shocks. To safeguard their livelihoods, they diversify income with subsistence crops and off-farm jobs, prioritizing financial stability and steady cash flow over maximizing long-term yields.

 

Traditional interventions also assume a monoculture model, implicitly pushing smallholders to become poor imitations of industrial plantations—rather than recognizing their unique strengths and ways of working.