The report on oil palm compiled for the 2007 Paris International Agricultural Fair
All you need to know about oil palm
The issues
Reconciling growing demand with the environment
Palm oil is one of the emerging commodities that have burst onto the global market in the past 30 years and whose importance for both producing and consuming countries has never stopped growing. The pattern over the period has been very similar for palm oil and soybean oil, with output growing from a few million tonnes in the 1960s to around 30 million tonnes today. However, oil palm yields are around ten times those of soybean.
Global palm oil requirements are set to be huge in the long-term future, to satisfy demand from the agrifood and oleochemicals industries, and also the more recent demand for biofuels. Palm oil is primarily consumed in densely populated developing countries (China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc), but Europe is now the leading importer, along with China.
Oil palm plantings and oil mills, along with the range of services linked to production, are helping to develop the local economy in often pioneering areas, and some four million people worldwide make a living from the industry. However, the area planted with oil palm has increased considerably in recent years, particularly in Southeast Asia, often at the expense of forest and without any particular precautions being taken. This is posing serious problems in terms of the maintenance of conservation areas, biodiversity erosion, and also the various types of pollution generated by oil palm cropping practices.
Oil palm cultivation took off in the 1960s, at the time of Independence for many countries. Malaysia was the spearhead of this development, followed some fifteen years later by Indonesia. In Africa, State-owned companies all embarked upon the venture at around the same time, with a more modest impact. In Latin America, Thailand, Papua New Guinea, etc, it is the private sector that has been the main player in the emergence of the commodity chain.
Estates and smallholdings
While there are still traditional oil palm plantations in Africa, it is the multiplication of large agroindustrial plantations that has fuelled the exponential growth in palm and palm kernel oil production (which has doubled every decade for the past 40 years). However, this rise in output has also been due to the rapid development of smallholdings, which now account for around 30% of total output.