World has approximately 2,600 species of palm trees cataloged. Macaúba is one of the more than 250 palm trees reported in Brazil and stands out for its rusticity. Palm trees are abundant species in the world and can be included in the calculations of the carbon storage potential of forests. There are approximately 2,600 species cataloged on the planet, and in America palm trees are five times more numerous than in Asia and Africa, according to the survey by scientists from 48 countries released in the Bori Agency.
There are species that live in the water, such as the buriti, others that grow in the desert, such as the date palm. Some are demanding on water resources, others need little water. In Brazil, according to researcher Ricardo Lopes, from Embrapa Western Amazon, author of the book “Native Palm Trees of Brazil”, there are more than 250 species of palm trees and more than half occur in the Amazon.
This is not the case with macaúba. Little known inside and outside Brazil, this palm tree does not adapt to the Amazon biome. It is a rustic species, which settles in regions of more precarious soils and more severe climate with long months of drought. Present from the South of the American continent to Mexico, in Brazil the macaúba is found mainly in the Cerrado biome and in transition areas to the Atlantic Forest.
Its adaptability weighs in its favor. While the African palm (palm oil) only develops in humid regions – areas of equatorial forests, Amazonian and, above all, in Southeast Asia – with at least 2,000 millimeters of rain well distributed during the year, macaúba is present in regions with prolonged periods of drought and, at most, 1,500 millimeters of annual rainfall.
Of medium size, the macaubeira, as it is also known, reaches up to 20 meters in height and has the canopy not very dense, which allows the luminosity to reach the ground. This fact enables its planting in the following systems: 1-agroforestry, in which macaúba is intercropped with other crops of interest in the region, macaúba with coffee is an example and 2-silvopastoril, in which the integration between macaúba, pasture and livestock occurs. The palm of the oil palm – although it also has a similar size – has a denser canopy and shades everything around, which makes it impossible to consortium with other crops.
Conclusion: one hectare of macaúba is much more productive than that of palm, due to the possibility of planting a larger number of individuals in the same area. The numbers remove any doubt: one hectare (ha) of macaúba produces 9 tons of oil/ha, while the palm produces 3.8 tons/ha; sunflower, 0.7 tons of oil/ha and soybean 0.6 tons of oil/ha.
In addition to high productivity, macaúba can be grown in integrated systems, which contribute to low-carbon agriculture. For this reason, it was the choice of S.Oleum, a company dedicated to the production of sustainable feedstock with negative carbon, on a large scale, for the transformation of the energy, chemical and food industries through forest restoration.
With the oils, biomass and other derivatives from the macaúba, S.Oleum will provide feedstock for various industries, such as bioenergy, food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, animal feed, biomaterials, among others.