• How has palm oil changed over the years?
  • Between 1970 and 2020, the world’s production of palm oil increased by about 40 times. Global production went from only 2 million tonnes to around 80 million tonnes. The change in global production is shown in the chart.3 The story of palm oil is less about it as an isolated commodity and more about the rising demand for vegetable oils.
  • Where does palm oil come from?
  • In the map, we see the distribution of production across the world. Small amounts of palm oil are grown in many countries, but the global market is dominated by only two: Indonesia and Malaysia. In the chart, we see the production of the palm oil plant across a number of countries. Other producers include Thailand, Colombia, and Nigeria.
  • How is palm oil processed?
  • For crude palm oil processing, it generally required complete processes such as sterilization, threshing, cooking, pressing, washing, purification, and drying. Sterilization as the first step in palm fruit pressing is critical to the quality of the final production– palm oil.
  • 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 ).