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Land used for palm fruit oil production

FAO
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Agricultural Production

What you should know about this indicator

Item: Palm fruit oil Description: This subclass covers oil palm fruit, species of Elaeis guineensis. The oil palm produces bunches containing a large number of fruits with the fleshy mesocarp enclosing a kernel that is covered by a very hard shell. FAO considers palm oil (coming from the pulp) and palm kernels as primary products. The oil extraction rate from a bunch varies from 17 to 27% for palm oil, and from 4 to 10% for palm kernels. (Unofficial definition)

Metric: Area harvested Description: Data refer to the area from which a crop is gathered. Area harvested, therefore, excludes the area from which, although sown or planted, there was no harvest due to damage, failure, etc. It is usually net for temporary crops and some times gross for permanent crops. Net area differs from gross area insofar as the latter includes uncultivated patches, footpaths, ditches, headlands, shoulders, shelterbelts, etc.If the crop under consideration is harvested more than once during the year as a consequence of successive cropping (i.e. the same crop is sown or planted more than once in the same field during the year), the area is counted as many times as harvested. On the contrary, area harvested will be recorded only once in the case of successive gathering of the crop during the year from the same standing crops. With regard to mixed and associated crops, the area sown relating to each crop should be reported separately. When the mixture refers to particular crops, generally grains, it is recommended to treat the mixture as if it were a single crop; therefore, area sown is recorded only for the crop reported. Source: FAO Statistics Division

Source
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
March 14, 2024
Next expected update
March 2025
Date range
1961–2022
Unit
hectares

Related research and writing

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Palm Oil

Hannah Ritchie

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

Crop and livestock statistics are recorded for 278 products, covering the following categories:

  1. Crops primary: Cereals, Citrus Fruit, Fibre Crops, Fruit, Oil Crops, Oil Crops and Cakes in Oil Equivalent, Pulses, Roots and Tubers, Sugar Crops, Treenuts and Vegetables. Data are expressed in terms of area harvested, production quantity and yield. Area and production data on cereals relate to crops harvested for dry grain only. Cereal crops harvested for hay or harvested green for food, feed or silage or used for grazing are therefore excluded.

  2. Crops processed: Beer of barley; Cotton lint; Cottonseed; Margarine, short; Molasses; Oil, coconut (copra); Oil, cottonseed; Oil, groundnut; Oil, linseed; Oil, maize; Oil, olive, virgin; Oil, palm; Oil, palm kernel; Oil, rapeseed; Oil, safflower; Oil, sesame; Oil, soybean; Oil, sunflower; Palm kernels; Sugar Raw Centrifugal; Wine.

  3. Live animals: Animals live n.e.s.; Asses; Beehives; Buffaloes; Camelids, other; Camels; Cattle; Chickens; Ducks; Geese and guinea fowls; Goats; Horses; Mules; Pigeons, other birds; Pigs; Rabbits and hares; Rodents, other; Sheep; Turkeys.

  4. Livestock primary: Beeswax; Eggs (various types); Hides buffalo, fresh; Hides, cattle, fresh; Honey, natural; Meat (ass, bird nes, buffalo, camel, cattle, chicken, duck, game, goat, goose and guinea fowl, horse, mule, Meat nes, meat other camelids, Meat other rodents, pig, rabbit, sheep, turkey); Milk (buffalo, camel, cow, goat, sheep); Offals, nes; Silk-worm cocoons, reelable; Skins (goat, sheep); Snails, not sea; Wool, greasy.

  5. Livestock processed: Butter (of milk from sheep, goat, buffalo, cow); Cheese (of milk from goat, buffalo, sheep, cow milk); Cheese of skimmed cow milk; Cream fresh; Ghee (cow and buffalo milk); Lard; Milk (dry buttermilk, skimmed condensed, skimmed cow, skimmed dried, skimmed evaporated, whole condensed, whole dried, whole evaporated); Silk raw; Tallow; Whey (condensed and dry); Yoghurt.

Retrieved on
March 14, 2024
Retrieved from
http://www.fao.org/faostat/en/#data/QCL
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations - Production: Crops and livestock products (2023).

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To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Land used for palm fruit oil production”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “Agricultural Production”. Data adapted from Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-palm-oil [online resource]
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Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023) – with major processing by Our World in Data. “Land used for palm fruit oil production – FAO” [dataset]. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, “Production: Crops and livestock products” [original data]. Retrieved November 27, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/land-use-palm-oil