Sustainable Palm Oil

Introduction

Vegetable oil production around the world totaled about 150 million tonnes (2009 data from FAO), of which over 40 million tonnes were produced by the oil palm, the world's leading oil crop.

Palm oil is an important and versatile raw material for both food and non-food industries, which contributes to the economic development of the producing countries and to the diets of millions of people around the world. Although palm oil is entirely GM free and has the highest yield per hectare than any oil or oilseed crop, it is recognized that there are environmental pressures on its rapid expansion to eco-sensitive areas, particularly as oil palm can only be cultivated in tropical areas of Asia, Africa and South America. It is vital that production and use of palm oil must be done in a sustainable manner based on economic, social and environmental viability.

Why sustainable palm oil?

Driven by ever increasing global demand for edible oils, the past few decades have seen rapid expansion in the production of two major edible oils, soyoil in South America and palm oil throughout the tropics and stretching into the sub-tropics. From the 1990s to the present time, the area under palm oil cultivation had increased by about 43% , mostly in Malaysia and Indonesia - the world's largest producers of palm oil. It is this rapid expansion that has been able to provide the world with its increasing demand for vegetable oil and because of the palm's productivity at a price that is affordable to rising needs in third word countries.

However the rapid expansion has naturally put pressure on the environment and on socities where the palm is grown. While better managed plantations and oil palm smallholdings serve as models of sustainable agriculture, in terms of economic performance as well as social and environmental responsibility, there is concern that not all palm oil is always being produced sustainably. Development of new plantations has resulted in the conversion of large areas of forests with high conservation value and has threatened the rich biodiversity in these ecosystems. Use of fire for preparation of land for oil palm planting on a large scale has been reported to contribute to the problem of forest fires in the late 1990s. The expansion of oil palm plantations has also given rise to social conflicts between indigenous communities and growers in some places. Hence sustainable palm oil is seen as a way forward to continue to supply the world with its much needed vegetable oil without harming the planet and its people.