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Palm Oil Debate Information Sheet

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15 views3 pages

Palm Oil Debate Information Sheet

Uploaded by

rayanramyazizhanna
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Palm Oil Information Sheet

What is Palm Oil?

Palm oil is a healthy edible oil with many uses for worldwide products.

It is commercially grown on trees called Oil Palm which are planted in


large plantations

Palm oil is one of the 17 major oils and fats produced


globally and is thought to be the most efficient, giving the
largest amount of crop for the area planted.

The top five Palm oil producing countries in the


world

Rank Country Production


1 Indonesia 33,000.00
2 Malaysia 19,800.00
3 Thailand 2,000.00
4 Colombia 1,108.00
5 Nigeria 930.00

Oil palm grows best in


wet, tropical areas –
which are also where
rainforests occur. As palm
oil production expands
more rainforests are
cleared in places like
Indonesia, Malaysia and
beyond to make way for
oil palm plantations.
Palm Oil Information Sheet

What do we use it for?

Palm oil ingredients are found in approximately 50% of products on supermarket shelves. It is
used in a wide variety of products such as cooking oil, and margarine, soaps, detergents,
toiletries, cosmetics and candles.

Why has it become such a popular product around the world?

Palm oil offers great advantages compared to other vegetable oils:

•. Palm oil provides the right amounts of fat in a balanced diet and is cholesterol-free
• Palm oil is also high in vitamin A.

The palm oil industry is also using Palm Oil as a substitute for diesel in taxis, buses, trucks and
cars. Studies indicate that the performance of engines using palm biodiesel is good; engines
start easily and run smoothly with less exhaust fumes; therefore it is more environmentally
friendly.

Palm Oil in Malaysia and Borneo

In Malaysia, the industry provides direct employment for about 570,000 people.

In Malaysia there was a lot of poverty in the past for landless farmers. The government decided
to give them small plots of land to grow Palm Oil on as a way to make money. Since these
schemes were started they
have helped 95,000 families
in Malaysia alone.

As a whole the
industry provides
employment to more
than half a million people and
livelihood to an estimated
one million people.
Palm Oil Information Sheet

Why do people say Oil Palm is bad?

Clearing rainforests for oil palm plantations has destroyed


habitat for endangered species like rhinos, elephants, tigers
and orang-utans, which are all at risk of extinction.

Specific problems include:

 The destruction of habitats containing rare and endangered


species.

 An increase in human-wildlife conflict as populations of large animals – such as tigers, elephants


and orangutans – are squeezed out of their natural habitat.

Deforestation for palm oil has also robbed local people of


their land and livelihoods. Human health is also affected
by smoke from burning forests to clear the land. This is
not just a problem for people living close to the fires but
also for those living further afield, as the smoke haze
spreads. The global impacts of deforestation are just as
concerning. Deforestation releases large volumes of
climate warming gases into the atmosphere.

Water pollution from the palm oil industry can also occur from the waste made when they
extract the oil. For every tonne of palm oil produced, 2.5 tonnes of waste are generated. When
this waste is released this can cause freshwater pollution, which can affect downstream
biodiversity and people.

Do the UK and other western nations have a right to stop or criticize Palm Oil production?

The UK, the USA and other western


nations, have destroyed a lot of their
forest cover in the past. Now Malaysia
and Indonesia are doing the same.
Some people would say we should
learn from the mistakes of the past,
others would say, it is not our right to
criticize developing nations for doing
what developed ones have already
done!

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