Palm oil in a sustainable world

Tuesday 30 August 2011 00:00

With a rapidly increasing global population (forecast to reach 9 billion by 2050 from the current level of around 7 billion) our ability to produce sufficient food in a resource-constrained world will become increasingly challenging. Cultivatable land and inputs are a finite resource, and legislation continues to reinforce the necessity to significantly reduce the environmental impact of increased food production. Given these limitations, palm oil can play a key role in maximising production with minimal inputs.

Oil palm is the highest yielding vegetable oil source in the world and produces substantially more energy output per unit energy input than other common oil sources such as soybean and rapeseed (Figure 1).

Palm oil has an additional benefit of being entirely GM-free.

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