Palm Oil Should Be Judged by Practice, Not Reputation
Elvis Ebikade, PhD · July 15, 2026
Feedstock rules, lifecycle evidence, and resource sovereignty
Palm oil carries a stigma that other food oils often escape.
Soybean, canola, rapeseed, and palm all supply food and industrial markets. Each now touches the fuel system through biodiesel, renewable diesel, or sustainable aviation fuel pathways. Yet palm is often treated differently. Soybean and canola enter renewable fuels as familiar commodities, while palm is frequently capped, phased out, or avoided before the performance of a specific supply chain is examined.
That difference matters because sustainability rules can use crop identity and geographic reputation as proxies for actual outcomes. A stronger system would examine land history, soil type, methane management, food-market effects, traceability, and lifecycle emissions.
The hypothesis in this essay is deliberately testable. Some palm systems may be able to serve food markets and limited fuel markets without creating new pressure on forests or food affordability. Others clearly will not. Palm is the entry point, while the deeper question is whether producing regions in the Global South receive a fair opportunity to be measured on their own evidence.
Two objections deserve serious treatment. Palm has an environmental record that cannot be dismissed. Food oils entering fuel markets can also affect food prices and land demand. I work in sustainable aviation fuel and biomass conversion, so those concerns are central to my field. I also come from Edo State, where palm is part of the landscape, the food system, and the memory of home. That personal connection gives me standing to ask the question, but it cannot substitute for evidence.
The case against palm is largely a case against particular practices and places
The highest carbon burdens associated with palm oil are closely tied to peat drainage, forest conversion, and methane from poorly managed mill effluent.
Southeast Asia contains about half of the world’s tropical peatlands and roughly three quarters of tropical peat carbon. Draining peat exposes centuries of accumulated organic matter to oxygen, creating emissions that can continue for decades. Published estimates place Southeast Asian peat drainage at roughly 1.3 to 3.1 percent of global fossil-fuel carbon dioxide emissions, with a more recent estimate near 2.2 percent.
Those impacts are real. They also arise from identifiable practices and landscapes rather than from the palm species alone.
Oil palm is native to West and Central Africa. Colonial botanical networks moved the crop into Southeast Asia, where Malaysia records its introduction in 1875. That history establishes cultural and agronomic standing for West Africa, but native origin does not prove that any present-day plantation is sustainable, high yielding, or low carbon. It supports a simpler claim: West African supply should be evaluated directly rather than assigned a lifecycle profile derived from another region by default.
A palm fruit bunch grown on long-established mineral soil, without recent conversion and with effective methane capture, is a different carbon proposition from one grown after peat drainage or forest loss. The rules should be capable of seeing that difference.
The strongest case against palm
A fair evaluation must begin with the strongest opposing case.
Peat drainage can create emissions for decades. Forest conversion destroys carbon stocks and habitat. Biodiversity, water quality, community consent, and land rights are not fully captured by a single carbon-intensity number.
Palm also carries a market risk precisely because it is productive, versatile, and relatively inexpensive. New fuel demand can raise the value of the crop and encourage expansion into West and Central African forests, including landscapes connected to the Congo Basin. Even a well-managed supply chain can contribute to pressure elsewhere if fuel demand removes oil from food markets and another producer expands to replace it.
This market-mediated displacement objection cannot be resolved by measuring one plantation in isolation. A credible pathway must consider direct land history, possible indirect effects, food-price impacts, and the feedstock displaced in the fuel market.
The case for a more precise rule is therefore conditional. Palm should qualify only where land conversion is excluded, methane is controlled, food-market effects are acceptable, chain of custody is credible, and the full lifecycle result meets the applicable threshold.
Judge the practice and the outcome
Palm’s land efficiency is relevant, although it is often overstated or presented without context.
A 2025 Wageningen study compared Indonesian palm, Brazilian soybean, and German rapeseed under current and future scenarios. In its ambitious 2040 scenarios, oil yields reached 4.8 tonnes per hectare for palm, 3.1 for soybean, and 2.6 for rapeseed. With peat cultivation ended and methane captured from mill effluent, the study estimated palm emissions near 1.0 to 1.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per tonne of oil.
These are scenario benchmarks for the locations and assumptions studied. They are not current Nigerian yields, nor do they establish the performance of West African palm. Their value is comparative: palm has a biological and structural land-efficiency advantage that can reduce land demand if high yields are achieved without conversion.
Nigeria’s opportunity remains largely unrealized. The country has the indigenous crop, a long research history, and a large smallholder base, while ageing trees, weak extension, processing losses, limited traceability, and uneven access to improved planting material constrain performance.
Land efficiency should therefore be treated as potential to be earned. A lower land requirement is valuable only when expansion is controlled, yields are improved on existing land, and smallholders share in the resulting value.
The hardest objection: food and fuel
The food-versus-fuel objection is morally serious because vegetable-oil markets transmit policy decisions into household prices.
The responsible pathway is a sequence.
Food supply comes first. Genuine residues and by-products can enter the fuel system next. Purpose-grown oil should be considered only where local food affordability is protected, land conversion is excluded, traceability is credible, and the resulting fuel performs better than the alternative feedstock it would displace.
For palm, that sequence could begin with palm fatty acid distillate, recovered oils from mill effluent, and other qualifying processing streams. Each category requires careful classification. A valuable product should not be relabelled as a residue to capture a fuel premium. Credible treatment requires clear definitions, reconciled mill mass balances, audit trails, and evidence that the classification reflects the underlying market.
Virgin palm oil presents the harder case. Added fuel demand can still pull expansion elsewhere even when the originating molecule is produced responsibly. A conditional gate therefore needs both supply-chain evidence and a market test. If the pathway raises food prices or induces additional high-carbon expansion, it should not proceed. If it displaces a lower-yielding oilseed while protecting food supply and land, the rules should be able to recognize that result.
The appropriate frame is food and fuel under strict conditions, rather than an assumption that the two can always coexist.
We penalize regions we have not measured
CORSIA illustrates both the value and the limits of lifecycle accounting.
ICAO’s current default HEFA values assign a core lifecycle value of 40.4 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per megajoule to soybean oil and 47.4 to rapeseed or canola. Adding the current global default indirect land-use-change values produces totals of about 62.9 for soybean and 71.3 for rapeseed. The fossil comparator is 89.
For palm fresh fruit bunches from Malaysia and Indonesia, the current default is 37.4 with at least 85 percent capture and oxidation of biogas from palm-oil mill effluent, plus an indirect land-use-change value of 36.6, for a total near 74.0. Without that level of methane capture, the core value rises to 60.0 before land-use change is added. Palm fatty acid distillate has a default core value of 20.7 because it is treated as a processing residue.
The table is useful because it distinguishes methane performance and feedstock category. Its geographic coverage is also incomplete. West African palm does not have its own default origin value, so producers must rely on actual-value methodologies or operate within defaults developed elsewhere.
Colombia shows why regional evidence matters. A 2025 study using primary data from 53 mills and 269 plantations reported a palm-based HEFA result of 16.11 grams per megajoule under its stated system boundaries, including direct land-use and methane-management data. That result should not be treated as an ICAO default until the relevant methodology and review processes accept it. It does demonstrate that local agronomy and mill practices can materially change the answer.
Brazil’s second-crop corn offers another example. Certification systems have developed methods that recognize double cropping and region-specific land use. The precedent is important: detailed regional modeling is possible when institutions invest in the evidence.
A missing default should not be interpreted as proof of poor performance. It should trigger measurement.
Three regimes, three approaches
The European Union, the United States, and CORSIA show how political choices shape lifecycle rules.
The European Union created a high indirect land-use-change risk category for feedstocks whose global expansion into high-carbon land exceeds defined thresholds. Palm was the first crop classified under that approach. In 2026, the European Commission concluded that soybean also met the criteria and stated its intention to update the framework. A WTO panel accepted the EU’s right to pursue its climate objective while finding deficiencies in the administration and review of the palm measures that produced arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination.
The United States moved in the opposite direction. For fuel produced after 2025, the revised Section 45Z rules exclude indirect land-use-change emissions and restrict eligible feedstocks to those produced or grown in the United States, Mexico, or Canada. That policy does not prove that land-use change is scientifically irrelevant. It demonstrates how readily the accounting boundary can change when domestic economic priorities change.
CORSIA remains the most useful control case because it retains land-use accounting, permits actual-value calculations, distinguishes process performance, and allows low land-use-change-risk practices to be demonstrated. Its weakness is the uneven evidence base across origins.
A durable system should keep the science rigorous while making access to measurement genuinely global.
Nigeria, up close
Nigeria’s palm story is indigenous, economically important, and incomplete.
The Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research in Benin City traces its origins to 1939. Nigeria accounted for an estimated 43 percent of global palm-oil production in the early 1960s. USDA currently places Nigerian production at about 1.5 million tonnes, around 2 percent of the global total, while recent domestic figures put consumption materially above production. The country remains a net importer.
Around 80 percent of Nigerian output is associated with smallholders. That structure creates both opportunity and difficulty.
For me, palm is a living crop before it is a feedstock. I know it through banga soup, the smell of palm oil warming before pepper, fish, and spices enter the pot, the red color that marks food from home, and the trees that belong to the memory of Edo State. That connection explains why the global shorthand feels incomplete. It also makes discipline more important. Familiarity with the crop cannot establish its lifecycle performance.
A credible Nigerian pathway would have to confront chain of custody. Fresh fruit bunches can pass through intermediaries, informal markets, and mixed mill intake. Many growers lack formal titles even when their use of the land is long-standing and lawful. Mass balance can make certification more inclusive, while segregation provides stronger physical assurance at higher cost.
Credible smallholder inclusion would require plot mapping, land-history checks, group certification, mill-level reconciliation, grievance systems, and a workable method for documenting legitimate land use where formal title is absent. It would also require attention to the finding that some Nigerian smallholders operate within rainforest landscapes, which makes yield improvement on existing land more important than expansion.
Nigeria’s immediate priority is greater food production, better yields, improved milling, stronger farmer incomes, and domestic value capture. Fuel should begin with residues and qualifying processing streams. Any future use of additional oil would require evidence that food supply is protected and lifecycle performance is competitive.
Ownership and resource sovereignty
Resource sovereignty concerns where expertise, processing, profits, and standards accumulate.
Okomu remains majority-owned within the Socfin group. Presco now presents a different case. In March 2024, Oak and Saffron Limited, a Nigerian holding company backed by Saro Africa International, acquired Fimave’s 86.7 percent interest in SIAT, which holds about 60 percent of Presco. Control of the company therefore returned to Nigerian ownership after more than three decades.
Local ownership can support domestic capability and bargaining power, but it is not a sustainability certificate. Nigerian-controlled companies remain accountable for land rights, labour standards, environmental performance, and community relationships. Foreign ownership is also not proof of poor practice. The relevant question is whether governance aligns commercial value with measurable public benefit.
That principle extends beyond palm. Nigeria’s investment in domestic refining reflects a broader effort to retain more processing value from resources produced at home. Palm development should pursue the same objective through improved mills, research, farmer services, transparent ownership, credible certification, and enforceable community protections.
What a fairer system would do
A fairer system would correct three problems.
First, crop identity would stop serving as a substitute for lifecycle evidence. Palm grown after peat drainage, palm grown on long-established mineral soil, and palm processing residues would receive different treatment because they create different outcomes.
Second, missing regional data would lead to investment in measurement rather than automatic exclusion. West African countries need origin-specific studies, access to actual-value certification, and transparent methodologies covering land history, yields, methane, transport, food-market effects, and chain of custody.
Third, food-versus-fuel discipline would apply consistently across all food oils. Soybean, rapeseed, canola, corn oil, and palm would face the same questions about additional land demand, market displacement, and food affordability.
Four practical steps follow.
Develop country and regional lifecycle datasets for West African palm.
Prioritize genuine residues and by-products, with safeguards against reclassification.
Place any purpose-grown oil behind a strict performance gate covering land conversion, land rights, methane, food supply, traceability, and verified lifecycle emissions.
Link market access to domestic capability, including research, certification, processing, smallholder productivity, and accountable governance.
Palm may be able to serve food first, residues second, and limited fuel demand third in some locations. That remains a hypothesis to test, not a conclusion to assume.
Shared responsibility is essential. Producing countries must strengthen land governance, enforcement, smallholder support, and food security. Buyers must support traceability and fair contracting. Regulators must make actual-value pathways accessible. Producers must demonstrate methane control, yield improvement, and community trust.
Sustainability is for people
Sustainability has to remain a human project.
Historical emissions shape the context in which development choices are made. The United States and Europe account for a large share of cumulative fossil-fuel and industrial carbon dioxide emissions since 1750, while Africa’s share remains small relative to its population. That asymmetry does not excuse future forest loss, weak governance, or poor labour practices. It does require climate rules that protect ecosystems without treating lack of data as evidence against poorer regions.
The case for West African palm is therefore neither exemption nor entitlement. It is a case for direct evaluation.
Palm should face rigorous land, carbon, biodiversity, food, and social tests. So should every competing oil crop. Where the evidence is weak, the pathway should wait. Where the evidence is strong, inherited reputation should not close the market.
If palm were judged by practice and outcome rather than regional shorthand, what would change in fuel policy next?
Sources and methodological notes
Facts and regulatory status checked through 21 June 2026. Lifecycle values depend on system boundaries, feedstock classification, regional land-use assumptions, and certification methodology. Values from different studies should not be treated as directly interchangeable without reviewing those assumptions.
ICAO, CORSIA Default Life Cycle Emissions Values for CORSIA Eligible Fuels, eighth edition, November 2025
ICAO, CORSIA Eligible Fuels lifecycle methodology
Wageningen University and Research, Comparative study on the sustainability of vegetable oils, 2025
Munar-Flórez et al., Colombian palm oil for sustainable aviation fuel, Energies, 2025
European Commission, 2026 review of high ILUC-risk feedstocks
World Trade Organization, DS593: European Union measures concerning palm oil and biofuels
Internal Revenue Service, One Big Beautiful Bill provisions affecting Section 45Z
Hooijer et al., Current and future carbon dioxide emissions from drained peatlands in Southeast Asia
Larson et al., Southeast Asian peatland drainage emissions, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022
USDA Foreign Agricultural Service, global palm oil production data
Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research
FAO, Nigeria oil palm sector and smallholder structure
Solidaridad, Palm Oil Barometer 2025
Presco corporate disclosure on the Oak and Saffron acquisition
Our World in Data, cumulative carbon dioxide emissions by region
