Palm oil is a form of edible vegetable oil obtained from the fruit of the oil palm tree. Previously the second-most widely produced edible oil, after soybean oil, 28 million metric tons were produced worldwide in 2004. It may have now surpassed soybean oil as the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world. It is also an important component of many soaps, washing powders and personal care products, is used to treat wounds, and has controversially found a new use as a feedstock for biofuel.
The palm fruit is the source of both palm oil (extracted from palm fruit) and palm kernel oil (extracted from the fruit seeds). Palm oil itself is reddish because it contains a high amount of beta-carotene. It is used as cooking oil, to make margarine and is a component of many processed foods. Boiling it for a few minutes destroys the carotenoids and the oil becomes colourless. Palm oil is one of the few vegetable oils relatively high in saturated fats (like coconut oil) and thus semi-solid at room temperature.
According to the Wealth of India, the oil yield of oil palm is higher than that of any other oilseed crop producing 2.5 MT oil per ha per year, with 5 MT recorded. Yields of semi-wild palms vary widely, usually ranging from 1.2 to 5 MT of bunches per hectare per year. One MT of bunches yields about 80 kg oil by local soft oil extraction, or 180 kg by hydraulic handpress. Estate yields in Africa vary from 7.5-15 MT bunches per hectare per year; in Sumatra and Malaya, 15-25 MT, with some fields producing 30-38 MT. Estate palm oil extraction yield rates vary accordingly: Dura, 15-16% oil per bunch; Deli Dura, 16-18%; Tenera, 20-22%. Kernel extraction yields vary from 3.5-5% or more. Palm oil is one of the world's important vegetable oils. United States imported nearly 90 million kg in 1966, more than half of it as kernel oil. Recently palm oil commanded $.31 per kg, indicating potential yields of about $1400 per ha. In 1968 world producing countries exported about 544,000 long tons of oil and 420,000 long tons of kernels. Main producing countries, in order of production, are Nigeria, Congo, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Indonesia, and Malaysia. United Kingdom is the largest importer of oil palm products, importing about 180,000 T of palm oil and 243,000 T of palm kernels annually. Japan, Eastern European and Middle East countries also import considerable quantities of palm oil and kernels. Some palm kernel oil extraction is now being done in the palm oil producing countries. Previously, most of the kernels had been exported, and the oil extracted in the importing countries.
Palm oil, like other vegetable oils, can be used to create biodiesel for internal combustion engines. Biodiesel has been promoted as a form of biomass that can be used as a renewable energy source to reduce net emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Therefore, biodiesel is seen as a way to decrease the impact of the greenhouse effect and as a way of diversifying energy supplies to assist national energy security plans. Scientists have found that biodiesel made from palm oil grown on sustainable non-forest land and from established plantations can effectively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
However, NGOs such as Greenpeace have concluded that the current "first generation" biodiesel extracted from new palm oil plantations may not be a genuine counter to global warming.[40] If forests are cleared for palm plantations, and the wood is not used for bioenergy but burned, it may take decades before biodiesel from palm oil reduces as much carbon dioxide as the pristine forests originally sequestered in the form of carbon. However, if the wood is used for the production of bioenergy, the palm plantations as well as the biodiesel from palm oil starts to sequester and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the first year onwards.
Although palm oil has a comparatively high yield, the problems that organisations such as Greenpeace have linked to palm cultivation on newly-cleared plantations have encouraged research into alternative vegetable fuel oil sources with less potential for environmental damage, such as jatropha. Although palm requires less manual labor to harvest a given amount of oil than jatropha, the latter grows well in more marginal areas and requires less water.
Other scientists and companies are going beyond merely using the oil from oil palm trees, and are proposing to convert the entire biomass harvested from a palm plantation into renewable electricity, cellulosic ethanol, biogas, biohydrogen and bioplastic. Thus, by using both the biomass from the plantation as well as the processing residues from palm oil production (fibers, kernel shells, palm oil mill effluent), bioenergy from palm plantations can have an effect on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Examples of these production techniques have been registered as projects under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism.
By using all the biomass residues from palm oil processing for renewable energy, fuels and biodegradable products, both the energy balance and the greenhouse gas emissions balance for biodiesel from palm oil is improved. For each tonne of crude palm oil (CPO) produced from fresh fruit bunches, the following residues, which can all be used for the manufacture of biofuels, bioenergy and bioproducts, become available: around 6 tonnes of waste palm fronds, 1 ton of palm trunks, 5 tons of empty fruit bunches (EFB), 1 ton of press fiber (from the mesocarp of the fruit), half a ton of palm kernel endocarp, 250kg of palm kernel press cake, and 100 tonnes of palm oil mill effluent (POME). In short, a palm plantation has the potential to yield a very large amount of biomass that can be used for the production of renewable products.
However, regardless of these new innovations, first generation biodiesel production from palm oil is still in demand globally and will continue to increase. Palm oil is also a primary substitute for rapeseed oil in Europe, which too is experiencing high levels of demand for biodiesel purposes. Palm oil producers are investing heavily in the refineries needed for biodiesel. In Malaysia companies have been merging, buying others out and forming alliances in order to obtain the economies of scale needed to handle the high costs caused by increased feedstock prices. New refineries are being built across Asia and Europe
Growers in Indonesia are also increasing production of palm oil to meet the global demand spurred by biofuels, with the government looking for it to become the world's top producer of palm oil.
In additional to servicing its traditional markets, it is looking to produce biodiesel. There are new mills and refineries being built by major local companies, such as PT. Asianagro (150,000 tpa biodiesel refinery), PT. Bakrie Group (a biodiesel factory and new plantations), Surya Dumai Group (biodiesel refinery) and global companies such as Cargill (sometimes operating through CTP Holdings of Singapore, building new refineries and mills in Malaysia and Indonesia, expanding its Rotterdam refinery to handle 300,000 tpa of palm oil, acquiring plantations in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Indonesian Peninsula and Papua New Guinea) and Robert Kuok's Wilmar International Limited (with plantations and 25 refineries across Indonesia, to supply feedstock to new biodiesel refineries in Singapore, Riau, Indonesia, and Rotterdam).
However, fresh land clearances, especially in Borneo, are contentious for their environmental impact. NGOs and many international bodies are now warning that, despite thousands of square kilometres of land standing unplanted in Indonesia, tropical hardwood forest are being cleared for palm oil plantations. Furthermore, as the remaining unprotected lowland forest dwindles, developers are looking to plant peat swamp land, using drainage that unlocks the carbon held in their trees and begins an oxidation process of the peat which can release 5,000 to 10,000 years worth of stored carbon. Drained peat is also at very high risk of forest fire, and there is a clear record of fire being used to clear vegetation for palm oil development in Indonesia. Drought and man-made clearances have led to massive uncontrolled forest fires over recent years, covering parts of Southeast Asia in haze and leading to an international crisis with Malaysia. These fires have been variously blamed on a government with little ability to enforce its own laws while impoverished small farmers and large plantation owners illegally burn and clear forests and peat lands in order to reap the developmental benefits of environmentally-valuable land.
Palm oil production is a basic source of income for many of the world's rural poor in South East Asia, Central and West Africa, and Central America. An estimated 1.5 million small farmers grow the crop in Indonesia, whereas about 0.5 million people are directly employed in the sector in Malaysia, plus those connected with spin offs. Not only does the palm represent a pillar of these nation's economies but it is a catalyst for rural development and political stability. Many social initiatives use profits from palm oil to finance poverty alleviation strategies. Examples include the direct financing of Magbenteh hospital in Makeni, Sierra Leone, through profits made from palm oil grown by small local farmers, the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance's Food Security Program, which draws on a women-run cooperative to grow palm oil, the profits of which are reinvested in food security, or the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's hybrid oil palm project in Western Kenya, which improves incomes and diets of local populations, to name just a few.
In the two countries responsible for over 80% of world oil palm production, Indonesia and Malaysia, smallholders account for 35-40% of the total area of planted oil palm and as much as 33% of the output. Elsewhere, as in West African countries that produce mainly for domestic and regional markets, smallholders produce up to 90% of the annual harvest.
As of 2006, the cumulative land area of palm oil plantations is approximately 11 million hectares. In 2005 the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, responsible for about half of the world's crop, estimated that they manage about half a billion perennial carbon-sequestering palm trees. Demand for palm oil has been rising and is expected to climb further.
This rising demand is resulting in tropical forest being cleared to establish new palm plantations. According to UNEP, at the current rate of intrusion into Indonesian national parks, it is likely that many protected rain forests will be severely degraded by 2012 through illegal hunting and trade, logging, and forest fires, including those associated with the rapid spread of palm oil plantations. There is growing concern that this will be harmful to the environment in several ways:
Damage to peatland, partly due to palm oil production, is claimed to contribute to environmental degradation, including four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and eight percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, due to the large areas of rainforest that are cleared to make way for palm oil plantations. The pollution is exacerbated because many rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia lie atop peat bogs that store great quantities of carbon that are released when the forests are cut down and the bogs drained to make way for the palm oil plantations.
NGOs have accused the growth of new palm oil plantations as also being responsible for peat forest destruction in Indonesia and for accelerating global warming. Greenpeace concluded that many food and cosmetics companies, including ADM, Unilever, Cargill, Proctor & Gamble, Nestle, Kraft and Burger King, are driving the demand for new palm oil supplies, partly for products that contain non-hydrogenated solid vegetable fats, as consumers now demand fewer hydrogenated oils in food products that were previously high in trans fat content. Friends of the Earth have concluded that the increase in demand comes from biofuel, with producers now looking to use palm as a source.
Environmental groups such as Greenpeace claim that the deforestation caused by making way for oil palm plantations is far more damaging for the climate than the benefits gained by switching to biofuel. The world's centres for oil palm production are Indonesia and Malaysia where rapid deforestation and the drying out of associated peatlands are, Greenpeace claim, releasing huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and thereby speeding climate change. Greenpeace identified Indonesian peatlands, unique tropical forests whose dense soil can be burned to release carbon emissions, that are being destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations. They represent massive carbon sinks, and they claim their destruction already accounts for four percent of annual global emissions. Greenpeace recorded peatland destruction in the Indonesian province of Riau on the island of Sumatra, home to 25 percent of Indonesia's palm oil plantations. There are plans to expand the area under concession by more than 11,000 square miles, which would deforest half of the province. They claim this would have devastating consequences for Riau's peatlands, which have already been degraded by industrial development and store a massive 14.6 billion tons of carbon, roughly one year's greenhouse gas emissions.
Research conducted by Greenpeace through its Forest Defenders Camp in Riau documents how a major Indonesian palm oil producer is engaging in the large-scale, illegal destruction of peatland in flagrant violation of an Indonesian presidential order, as well as national forestry regulations. Palm oil from peatland is fed into the supply chain for global brands. They accuse major multinational companies of turning a blind eye to peatland destruction to supply cheap vegetable oil. FoE and Greenpeace both calculate that forests and peatlands that are replaced as palm oil plantations release more carbon dioxide than is saved by burning biofuels in place of diesel.
Many of the major companies in the vegetable oil economy participate in the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, which is trying to address this problem. In 2008 Unilever, a member of the group, committed to use only palm oil which is certified as sustainable, by ensuring that the large companies and smallholders that supply it convert to sustainable production by 2015.
Meanwhile, much of the recent investment in new palm plantations for biofuel has been part-funded through carbon credit projects through the Clean Development Mechanism; however the reputational risk associated with unsustainable palm plantations in Indonesia has now made many funds wary of investing there.
Read the Greenpeace Report
Daabon Group has 3 beautiful organic palm tree plantations located on the western slopes of the Santa Marta mountain range. The climatic conditions, wide availability of pure and non contaminated water flowing down from the snow peaks to the farms and year long extended sun light are ideal for palm fruit production. Daabon is the only company in the world that has vertically integrated the palm oil production from seeder to farming, harvesting, mechanical pressing, physical refinery and finally to end products such as RBD, Stearin, Shortenings, Olein, Kernel oils, Margarine, Non Dairy Coffee Creamers and byproducts such as Kernel cake and vegetable residues for compost making at our own facilities.
Due to the extensive hazards posed by animal fat cholesterol and excessive levels of trans fats derived from hydrogenation, organic palm fruit oil is becoming the preferred option of high quality, health conscious food processors. Organic Palm fruit oil does not require hydrogenation as it is solid at room temperature, therefore avoiding harmful trans fatty acids. There are several uses of palm fruit oil. Among the most common our customers use our products in baking, frying, food mixes, coatings, ice cream and others.
Today Daabon owns 2,500 ha. of palm tree plantations and it is sponsoring the development of an additional 2,000 ha. owned by cooperatives of small farmers. This is another important project of great social impact in the region where Daabon is committed to improve the living conditions of the local communities
