The Importance of the Global Oils and Fats Supply and the Role that Palm Oil Plays in Meeting the Demand for Oils and Fats Worldwide

摘要

This article highlights the importance of the role that palm oil plays in meeting the demand for oils and fats worldwide for food. On top of this food demand, the demand for vegetable oils for biofuels, which now absorb over 10% of world oil and fat supplies, has rapidly increased. Fig. 1 illustrates the growth in world vegetable oil production that has occurred since the mid-1980s. Listed in the textbox are average annual growth rates over this period. In 1984-1985, soybean oil was well ahead of the other oils as the largest source of vegetable oil supplies. Now it lies almost 20% behind palm oil in volumes. Palm oil was only slightly ahead of sunflower and rapeseed oil in global output in 1984-1985, but now it is clearly the most important single source of oil. Rapeseed and sunflower oil production rates have broadly followed the growth in output of their seeds, with rapeseed now representing close to double the output of sunflower. The ranking of the two lauric oils-coconut and palm kernel-has been reversed since 2000. Palm kernel oil output is now almost 50% higher than that of coconut oil.