Palm oil.

• Author: Block, Ben
• Position: LIFE - CYCLE STUDIES

Overview

People have shimmied up the oil palm to reach its prickly red fruit for thousands of years. Native to West Africa, Elaeis guineensis contains two distinct oils used in a variety of dishes. The Industrial Revolution provided a boon for African farmers, who supplied London's cravings for candle making and machine lubricants. Then colonial plantations took over production, and by the 1920s the crop had spread across the Congo Basin and into Central and South America. After European agronomists discovered that the oil palm thrived in Southeast Asia's heavy rains, the crop quickly transformed the island landscapes. By the mid-twentieth century, Malaysia and Indonesia were supplying the world.

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Once planted, oil palms can produce fruit for more than 30 years, yielding more oil per hectare than any major oilseed...