According to United Nations Population Division (UNPD), the world’s population in 2050 will be approximately 9.2 billion. To estimate the trend in requirements between now and 2050, one needs estimates of population and per capita consumption. For consumption, there are two opposing trends; first as living standards rise in the developing world, per capita consumption is increasing. Where consumption is currently less than 25/ head/ annum, it will have increased to 25 kg/ head. Where consumption already exceeds 25 kg/ head it would continue at the present rate. In western countries, the level of consumption is 37 kg/ head which are unhealthily high when compared to the desired dietary intake of 20 kg/head.
The above table shows that the medium estimate of edible oil requirements in 2050 is 240 million MT, roughly twice the current production. Low, medium and high consumption estimates described in the table, the text ‘soya increasing’ assumes that soya continues to make up 30% of total production. ‘Soya Constant’ assumes that soya remains constant at the current production level of 36 million tonnes. In each case, Palm Oil increases to meet the remaining demand.
The two major edible oils are Palm Oil and soya bean oil; demand for the latter is driven primarily by demand for oil meal, rather than for vegetable oil. In the past, the rate of growth in demand for soya bean meal has been approximately the same as the rate of growth in demand for vegetable oil, so that soya bean oil has retained a more or less constant share of the vegetable oil market. Thus, base assumption is that soya bean oil will continue to make up 30% of total production. Other oils remain constant at today’s production levels, with Palm Oil making up the difference. Palm Oil is the oil with the lowest production cost. The move away from trans–fatty acids also favours Palm Oil, as it can be used without hydrogenation as the solid component in many formulations. An alternate scenario therefore has Palm Oil meeting the entire additional requirement, with the other oils all remaining constant at today’s levels, including soya. The above table shows future vegetable oil requirements, based on at least 93 million MT and more likely between 120 and 156 million MT (medium estimate).
Among the oil crops, Oil Palm is the ‘land sparing’ option because it gives much higher yields than other crops. The additional oil must come from somewhere; if that requirement, under the medium consumption estimate were all to come from soya bean, a total area of that crop of about 189 million ha. would be needed in 2050 (assuming that yields continue to rise by about 1.5% per year). This is roughly double the current area under soya beans. Much of the current expansion of soya beans is in the Brazilian Amazon region, so environmental damage is probably comparable to that from recent Oil Palm expansion at the expense of forests in Indonesia. Thus it would be preferable to meet the increasing demand for edible oil with additional 19 million hectares of Oil Palm (medium estimate, soya constant and improved yields) rather than an additional 95 million hectares of soya beans. Assuming that Palm Oil yields continue to improve, and that soya been production also increases, then additional 12 million hectares of oil palm will be required. The major countries where the expansion can take place are Indonesia, Brazil and Columbia.
Besides producing oils and fats, at present there is a continuous increasing interest concerning Oil Palm renewable energy. One of the major attentions is bio-diesel from Palm Oil. Palm Oil bio-diesel is bio-degradable, non-toxic and has significantly lower emissions than petroleum-based diesel when burned. In addition to this, Oil Palm is also well-known plant for its other sources of renewable energy, for example, huge quantities of bio-mass by-products are developed to produce value added products such as organic acids, bio-compost, plywood, activated carbon, and animal feedstock. Even Oil Palm Mill Effluent (POME) has been converted to produce energy.