Origin of oil palm

It is generally agreed that the Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis) originated in the tropical rain forest region of West Africa. The main belt runs through the southern latitudes of Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Togo and into the equatorial region of Angola and the Congo. Processing oil palm fruits for edible oil has been practiced in Africa for thousands of years, and the oil produced, highly coloured and flavoured, is an essential ingredient in much of the traditional West African cuisine. The traditional process is simple, but tedious and inefficient.

During the 14th to 17th centuries some palm fruits were taken to the Americas and from there to the Far East. The plant appears to have thrived better in the Far East, thus providing the largest commercial production of an economic crop far removed from its centre of origin.
Palm oil is rich in carotenoids, (pigments found in plants and animals) from which it derives its deep red colour, and the major component of its glycerides is the saturated fatty acid palmitic; hence it is a viscous semi-solid, even at tropical ambients, and a solid fat in temperate climates.
Because of its economic importance as an high-yielding source of edible and technical oils, the oil palm is now grown as a plantation crop in most countries with high rainfall (minimum 1 600 mm/yr) in tropical climates within 10° of the equator. The palm bears its fruit in bunches (Fig.1) varying in weight from 10 to 40 kg. The individual fruit, (Fig. 2) ranging from 6 to 20 gm, are made up of an outer skin (the exocarp), a pulp (mesocarp) containing the palm oil in a fibrous matrix; a central nut consisting of a shell (endocarp); and the kernel, which itself contains an oil, quite different to palm oil, resembling coconut oil.

The wild oil palm groves of Central and West Africa consists mainly of a thick-shelled variety with a thin mesocarp, called Dura. Breeding work, particularly crosses between Dura and a shell-less variety (Pisifera), have led to the development of a hybrid with a much thicker mesocarp and a thinner shell, termed Tenera. All breeding and planting programs now use this latter type, the fruits of which have a much higher content of palm oil than the native Dura.
The extensive development of oil palm industries in many countries in the tropics has been motivated by its extremely high potential productivity. The oil palm gives the highest yield of oil per unit area compared to any other crop and produces two distinct oils - palm oil and palm kernel oil - both of which are important in world trade.

Modern high-yielding varieties developed by breeding programs, under ideal climatic conditions and good management, are capable of producing in excess of 20 tonnes of bunches/ha/yr, with palm oil in bunch content of 25 percent. This is equivalent to a yield of 5 tonnes oil/ha/yr (excluding the palm kernel oil), which far outstrips any other source of edible oil.


Bunch weight
23-27 kg
Fruit/bunch
60-65 %
Oil/bunch
21-23 %
Kernel/bunch
5-7 %
Mesocarp/bunch
44-46 %
Mesocarp/fruit
71-76 %
Kernel/fruit
21-22
Shell/fruit
10-11

However, such high yields are rarely achieved in practice because climatic conditions are usually less than ideal. Rainfall is erratic in Central and West Africa and hence the tree suffer water-related stresses. The management of costly inputs of labour, imported fertilizers, pesticides and harvesting machinery, is also a difficulty that hampers the yield of plantations.

International trade in palm oil began at the turn of the nineteenth century, while that of palm kernels developed only after 1832. Palm oil became the principal cargo for slave ships after abolition of the slave trade. The establishment of trade in palm oil from West Africa was mainly the result of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. As people in Europe began to take sanitation and hygiene seriously, demand for soap increased, resulting in the demand for vegetable oil suitable for soap manufacture and other technical uses. Tinplating required technical oil for which palm oil was found suitable. In the early 1870s exports of palm oil from the Niger Delta were 25 000 to 30 000 tonnes per annum and by 1911 the British West African territories exported 87 000 tonnes.

The export of palm kernels also began in 1832 and by 1911 British West Africa alone exported 157 000 tonnes of which about 75 percent came from Nigeria. Nigeria was the largest exporter until 1934 when the country was surpassed by Malaysia. Africa led the world in production and export of palm oil throughout the first half of the 20th century, led by Nigeria and Zaire. By 1966, however, Malaysia and Indonesia had surpassed Africa’s total palm oil production. According to Oil Palm Review, published by the Tropical Development and Research Institute in the United Kingdom, over 3 million tonnes of palm oil was produced by Malaysia alone in 1983, compared with a total of about 1.3 million tonnes of African production.

This publication does not intend to discuss the factors leading to the spectacular performance of Indonesia and Malaysia. However in these countries solid research and development has been undertaken backed by a conscious desire to implement research findings. The plantation development culture acquired from long cultivation and processing of latex rubber was a good foundation on which to introduce the large-scale plantation cultivation of palm oil. Mastery of technology and rapid mechanisation, together with government support to the industry as a systematic and strategic industrial development policy, facilitated private sector investment in this sector. These factors as well as many others have all played a part in the development of the Far East’s rise to prominence in the oil palm industry.