Why Is Palm Oil Important?

Palm oil accounts for approximately 35% of the world's vegetable oil market. Here are some of the reasons why:

Palm oil trees are harvested all year round.
Oil palm tress produce on average 10MT of fruit/hectare - far more efficient as compared to soya, rapeseed and sunflower crops.
Hence, oil palm requires on average 10 times less land as compared to other types of vegetable oil crops
In addition to palm oil, palm kernel oil and palm kernel expeller/cake are also produced from the fresh fruit bunches.
Palm kernel expeller is used in the energy and animal feed sector while palm kernel oil is widely used in the personal care market.
Here are 2 infographics from Green Palm:

Palm oil is a very versatile vegetable oil.
Palm oil, palm kernel oil has different melting points and characteristics. Hence, they can be processed to produce a wide variety of products in various industries.

It is expected that the global population will reach around 9 billion by 2050.
Due to palm oil being the most efficient vegetable oil crop available, it is crucial in helping to feeding a growing number of people

Many people depend on palm oil for their livelihoods.
Oil palm smallholders are some of the poorest farmers and they earn money from growing oil palm trees.

The palm oil industry forms the backbone of countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.
Palm oil accounts for 11% of Indonesia's export earnings - one third of this production is attributed to smallholder farmers.