Have you ever eaten anything with palm oil? This is the most widely used vegetable oil worldwide! Maybe you sometimes enjoy eating chips, cookies or a sauce over the macaroni. There is a good chance that it contains palm oil. By the way, those products contain the white palm oil, this is the processed variant of the healthier red palm oil. The latter is also called extra virgin red palm oil. And this red palm oil is super healthy. However, there are also some drawbacks, for example, many people are concerned about the palm oil deforestation that sometimes takes place in South and West Africa, but also in Indonesia and Malaysia. This deforestation takes place in order to create plantations for the palm oil, and often comes along with poor working conditions.
Use of radar images to combat deforestation
In a few years’ time, the large food companies only want to purchase sustainable palm oil, with good working conditions and where no more forest is cut. But it is often difficult to check whether local producers adhere to this. A special radar system should help to accomplish this goal. The production of palm oil in Indonesia and Malaysia will be …