<aside> 📌 Last updated June 26th, 2024
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Oil palm is recognized as an important oil crop worldwide. With 18.7 million hectares of industrial oil palm plantations in 2017, the industry represents the third largest oilseed crop in terms of planted area, behind soybeans and rapeseed.
Due to its high yields, oil palm produces around 35% of all vegetable oil on less than 10% of the land allocated to oil crops. Oil palm cultivation involves a large number of smallholders, accounting for up to 94% of the land cultivated for oil palm in some countries.
📌 source: UICN - Palm oils and biodiversity, 2018
Around three years after planting, the oil palm begins to produce fruit. It reaches its peak production phase around 10 years after planting.
The life cycle of an oil palm plantation is around 25 years, after which the tree grows too large, manual harvesting becomes more difficult, and yields decline.
The palm trees are then cut down and the plantation left to lie fallow before a new cycle begins. It is then replaced by a new plantation. Compared with other oil crops, oil palm is a relatively high-yielding, labor-intensive crop.
📌 source: UICN - Palm Oils and biodiversity 2018
The raw product of the oil palm is in the form of fresh fruit bunches, typically harvested every 10 to 14 days from a mature plantation.
These fresh fruit bunches must reach the production plant within 24 hours of harvest to ensure optimum oil quality, although there have been reports of bunches traveling up to 5 days before arriving at the press plant.
The fruit is then pressed and the kernels crushed. The oil is extracted both from the flesh of the fruit, producing palm oil, which is raw orange in color, and from the kernel, producing palm kernel oil, which is paler.
Palm oil is rich in palmitic fatty acids, and around 75% of the world's production is destined for food products, in particular cooking oil and processed oils and fats (e.g., palm kernels). fats (e.g. margarine).
Palm kernel oil is rich in lauric fatty acids, and is used mainly for industrial purposes and soap-making, as well as in processed foods.