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Understanding the corporation
Notes written from CDC's published figures: what each crop produces, how the expansion projects work, and why.
OperationsWhat low free fatty acid palm oil actually means
CDC describes its palm oil as low free fatty acid. It is the most useful number on the label, and it is decided in the hours between harvest and mill.
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ExpansionSix years from planting to first tapping
Matouke was planted in 2008 and first tapped in 2015. That gap is the single hardest thing about growing rubber, and it shapes how the expansion projects were designed.
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CropsThe smallest planted area, and the largest tonnage
Banana occupies a ninth of CDC's land and produces about five times the weight of its rubber. Reading the two figures together says a lot about how the corporation is balanced.
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SmallholdersWhat a nursery decides in a smallholder scheme
Donga Mantung and Manyu are designed around 20,000 hectares of smallholdings between them. The detail that matters most is the least visible one: where the seedlings come from.
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AgronomyWhy a plantation is always partly out of production
Of CDC's 42,027 planted hectares, a share is producing nothing at any given moment. That is not a shortfall. It is the shape of a perennial crop.
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LandThe estates are planted where the rain is
Rubber, oil palm and banana are all thirsty perennials. The reason all three grow on the same stretch of coast is written in the rainfall map.
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