Palm oil a Liquid Gold
Agricultural production has become more complex in recent times. Factors such as
increasing the quantity of food to meet the spiraling demands of the world population,
sustainable land management so as to ensure the optimum utilization of resources and
developing holistic approach towards crop cultivation so as to minimize the emission of
green house gasses (GHG) have become pronounced. Vegetable oil industry has
witnessed significant growth over the past few years on account of a growing population
as well as the rising demand for alternative energy sources. Palm oil, soybean, rapseed
and sun flower seed are the four primary sources of vegetable oil. Together they satisfy
111.4 million tones or 81.4% of world demand (source-Oil World-2008).Palm oil, a
perennial crop has the best land productivity and highest oil yield per hectare of all oil
crops, producing 3.68 tonnes/hec/yr, compared to rapeseed (0.59), sunflower seed (0.42)
and soybean (0.36) (source – Corley and Tinker 2003).Higher land productivity translates
to lesser land requirement to produce the same amount of oil than other major oil crops.
Having said this, palm oil finds its use in broadly two categories the food and the
non-food.It is mainly used as cooking oil and as non-food ingredient; it finds application in
the production of cosmetics, toiletries, soaps and detergents. Its utilization for the
production of bio diesel is increasing steadily.
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 the Americas. Between cultivation,
processing and various downstream sectors, Palm oil provides a decent living for close to
one million people in Malaysia. Under a program administered by the federal land
