LAST Sunday was World Rainforest Day – who knew? Not many, I suspect. Such is the plethora of special days, weeks and months that you cannot be expected to know them all. So don’t feel guilty about not knowing about World Rainforest Day. After all, I’m sure you’re already doing your bit to save the world’s rainforests by boycotting foods with palm oil listed as an ingredient.
In which case I need to break it to you that if you are avoiding palm oil, you are probably doing more harm to rainforests than you realise. Not all vegetable oils are the same and sustainable palm oil is far better for our environment than the standard alternatives of soybean, sunflower or rapeseed oil.
A big lie has been propagated by vested interests that the easy way to stop the clearance of rainforests for agricultural land is to inspect every processed food in the supermarket for palm oil and if it is listed put it back on the shelf. You might feel good for a nanosecond, but just as a butterfly flapping its wings in a Brazilian rainforest might cause someone to drive the wrong way down a one-way street (it’s Chaos Theory, check it out) rejecting your bakery favourite or that jar of curry sauce made with the help of palm oil can have consequences too – and they are bad. It will likely cause greater deforestation.
Research from Ferrero and Chester Zoo has revealed that public understanding of sustainable palm oil remains low. Although 62 per cent of Brits surveyed are aware of palm oil and its uses, only 11 per cent said they understood what sustainable palm oil is, and 39 per cent admitted to having just a vague idea. That explains why more than half of UK adults (58 per cent) report that they sometimes actively avoid products containing palm oil due to this confusion.
Fortunately the survey also found Brits are open to change, with 71 per cent saying that learning more about sustainable palm oil would influence their buying decisions and 74 per cent of those who are already aware of it say it’s important to choose it.
The reality is we have been seeking for decades (far longer if you include the arrival of margarine to replace butter) to find ingredients that make us healthier, cost less and use less land to cultivate. Farmers are no fools, and will always seek to grow crops that give them the best return for their investment, but the outcome varies depending on their climate (rainfall, temperatures etc), the nature of their soil and their ability to plant and harvest the crop. For Europe’s already cleared forests that has meant the use of oils made from seeds such as sunflowers, rape and soy.
In Southeast Asia the preference is palm oil and we should be thankful for that, for if it did not exist the deforestation in Malaysia, Indonesia and other neighbouring countries would be far, far greater. Some environmental zealots like to think of a world without palm oil but to produce the same amount of refined oil would require far more land, meaning more clearance of vegetation and fewer undisturbed animal habitats.
Consider some facts. Palm oil requires around one-ninth the land of substitutes such as rapeseed, olive and soybean. Because of its high yield, palm oil takes up just 0.38 per cent of global agricultural land but contributes over 56 per cent of global edible oils and fats exports. To keep pace with growing food demand would require cultivating an additional 36million hectares of oil palm, whereas soybean, the second most popular oil crop, would need 204million more hectares. On top of this, producing palm oil takes significantly fewer amounts of fertiliser, pesticides and energy inputs.
To give some sense of scale, globally the world currently uses 322million hectares (an area the size of India) to grow oil crops. If we sourced food oils only from the demonised oil palm we would need just 77million hectares – four times less, meaning there would have been far less deforestation – but were we to choose olive oil we’d need 660million hectares. That’s the equivalent of two Indias by landmass.
It may be hard to swallow for virtue signallers, but anyone wanting to protect the rainforest should be looking at the ingredients and rejecting other oils in preference to palm oil.
If there is a problem it is the amount of forest being cleared in Brazil to grow soy. Last year Brazil lost 2.8million/ha of primary forest (its second highest in 20 years) while Malaysia lost only 0.0689million/ha (its lowest in 20 years). In addition to this achievement, Malaysia’s ambitious reforestation target of planting 100million trees has already been met ahead of the 2025 deadline. China’s programme of 70million trees and Brazil’s 73million are not completed.
Were they able to, I’ve no doubt European farmers would be growing the oil palm too. That the EU seeks to place high tariffs on palm oil and subsidise sunflower and rapeseed cultivation has everything to do with protecting European farmers’ incomes and little to do with saving the planet or its rainforests.
The good news is deforestation from oil palm cultivation is trending down. There is a lot of work being done to ensure this economically vital crop can continue being produced without damage to the environment. For instance in Malaysia, 83 per cent of palm oil refining capacity is now certified as sustainable under a commitment to ‘No Deforestation, Peat and Exploitation (NDPE)’.
The fundamental point is if we did not cultivate oil palm but used other vegetable oil sources, their far-lower yields would require substantially more land, resulting in greater levels of deforestation.
So think carefully about it. Farmers make their choice not just because of climate, soil and price but also because of yield. The fact that in Southeast Asia farmers can choose palm oil has reduced the amount of global deforestation that might have taken place. We should be thankful to those farmers and happy to purchase any products that use sustainable palm oil instead of the alternatives.
This article appeared in Country Squire Magazine on June 25, 2025, and is republished by kind permission.
