• Is palm oil a good crop?
  • Palm oil is a very productive crop; as we will see later, it produces over a third of the world¡¯s oil but uses less than a tenth of croplands devoted to oil production. It has, therefore, been a natural choice to meet this demand. Who uses palm oil, and what is it used for?
  • Is palm oil a commodity?
  • The story of palm oil is less about it as an isolated commodity and more about the rising demand for vegetable oils. Palm oil is a very productive crop; as we will see later, it produces over a third of the world¡¯s oil but uses less than a tenth of croplands devoted to oil production. It has, therefore, been a natural choice to meet this demand.
  • Why is palm oil trade important?
  • The importance of palm oil trade in poverty alleviation, nutritional benefits and in supporting livelihoods and contributing to several SDGs suggest that increasing the sustainability of palm oil production and trade should be encouraged.
  • Is oil palm production sustainable?
  • Oil palm is an important commodity contributing to livelihoods of many communities and governments around the world. However, its cultivation and continuous expansion due to high and increasing demand has led to many negative effects leading to a call to make production sustainable.
  • When did palm oil become a commercial crop?
  • In terms of large-scale commercial production, however, oil palm is a relatively recent crop that only emerged into global prominence later in the twentieth century, with an almost linear rise from 1990 to the early 2000s, followed by a plateau after 2007 (Malaysian Palm Oil Production by Year 2020).
  • Which country produces the most palm oil in the world?
  • This is not surprising because, as of 2006, Indonesia became the largest producer of crude palm oil in the world, a result of decades of favorable government incentives to expand production (Khatiwada et al., 2018). In 2013 Indonesia alone produced about 50% of global palm oil (FAO, 2019) in mostly large state plantations (Li, 2018).