Historical oil production by country driver#

Having done my own review of the literature I conclude that palm oil has been a significant driver of tropical deforestation, especially in Southeast Asia. 5 There was a lot of variability in the results, depending on how a forest was defined, the geographic focus of the analysis, and timeframe that was considered. The IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Oil Palm Task Force conducted an in-depth review of the literature to understand the impact of palm oil on deforestation. This seems like a simple question, but is not as straightforward as we might expect. But has this expansion came at the expense of tropical forest? Land use to grow palm has more than quadrupled since 1980. Palm oil accounts for 6% of this land use, which is small when we consider that it produces 36% of the oil. The world devotes more than 300 million hectares for oilcrop production. But we should consider this in the context of all land used to grow oilcrops. This is because both countries achieve high yields.ġ9 million hectares might sound like a lot of land. This is low when we consider that it accounts for 84% of production. Indonesia and Malaysia account for 63% of global land use for palm.

Since 1980 the amount of land the world uses to grow palm has more than quadrupled, from 4 million to 19 million hectares in 2018. In the chart here we see the change in land use. This means that over the last 50 years the amount of land devoted to growing palm oil has increased a lot. Global palm yields have increased over time, but far short of the increase in demand. How has the world achieved such a rapid expansion of palm oil production? There are only two ways in which we can produce more of a given crop: increase yields (growing more on a given amount of land) or expand the amount of land we use to grow it. Although production is focused in only a few countries across the tropical belt, we see that palm oil is an important product across the world. In the next section we will look at what countries produce palm oil, but here we see a map of palm oil imports. A push towards increased biofuel consumption in the transport sector has been driving this, despite it being worse for the environment than normal diesel (more on this later). In Germany, for example, bioenergy is the largest use, accounting for 41% (more than food at 40%).

Some countries use much more palm oil for biofuels than others. While food products dominate globally, this breakdown varies from country-to-country. Bioenergy: 5% is used as biofuels for transport, electricity or heat.Industrial applications: 27% is used in industrial applications and consumer products such as soaps, detergents, cosmetics and cleaning agents.Foods: over two-thirds (68%) is used in foods ranging from margarine to chocolate, pizzas, breads and cooking oils.Palm oil is a versatile product which is used in a range of products across the world: Why has the market for palm oil – and vegetable oils more broadly – increased so rapidly? What is it used for? In fact, because we can produce up to 20 times as much oil per hectare from palm versus the alternatives, it has probably spared a lot of environmental impacts from elsewhere. But it’s not clear that the alternatives would have fared any better. This has had a negative impact on the environment, particularly in Indonesia and Malaysia. Being the most productive oilcrop, palm has taken up a lot of this production. Global demand for vegetable oils has increased rapidly over the last 50 years. The story of palm oil is not as simple as it is often portrayed. In this article I address some key questions about palm oil production: how has it changed where is it grown and how this has affected deforestation and biodiversity. Why are consumers turning their back on palm oil? And is this reputation justified? Many online grocery stores now offer the option to apply a ‘palm-oil free’ filter when browsing their products. There are now long lists of companies that have done so. From shampoos, to detergents, from chocolate to cookies, companies are trying to eliminate palm oil from their products. Retailers know that this is becoming an important driver of consumer choices. 43% also answered ‘Don’t know’, meaning that almost no one thought it was good.

41% of people thought palm oil was ‘environmentally unfriendly’, compared to 15% for soybean oil 9% for rapeseed 5% for sunflower and 2% for olive oil. In a large-scale consumer survey across the UK population on perceptions of vegetable oils, palm oil was deemed to be the least environmentally-friendly.

Historical oil production by country