More Land, More Damage: Why Ditching Palm Oil Could Worsen the Climate Crisis

More land, more damage by AI.

Palm oil’s dominance in the global vegetable oil market often draws fierce criticism. Images of scorched rainforests and displaced wildlife have made oil palm plantations a symbol of environmental devastation. 

Boycotting palm oil backfires environmentally

Public campaigns call for boycotts, urging consumers to abandon palm oil products in favor of seemingly greener alternatives. Yet behind the headlines lies a more complicated—and uncomfortable—reality: eliminating palm oil would likely worsen the very ecological crises activists hope to solve.

Today, palm oil provides roughly 35% of the world’s vegetable oil while occupying only 6% of the land used for vegetable oil crops. No other major oil crop even comes close. 

Rapeseed, sunflower, and soybean—commonly touted as alternatives—yield far less per hectare. Rapeseed averages 0.6 tons per hectare, sunflower seeds 0.5 tons, and soybeans a mere 0.4 tons. By contrast, oil palm plantations yield an impressive 2.5 tons. 

Replacing palm oil worsens deforestation

Replacing palm oil would require expanding agricultural land by at least four to six times, dramatically intensifying deforestation, carbon emissions, and habitat destruction around the globe.

Oil palm’s biological efficiency is key to its dominance. Native to humid tropical climates, oil palm trees thrive with minimal seasonal fluctuation, producing fruit year-round. 

As a perennial crop, oil palm can be harvested continuously for up to 30 years without the soil disturbance associated with annual crops like soybean and sunflower. Moreover, because it generates so much oil per plant, oil palm demands significantly less fertilizer, pesticides, and water per ton of output compared to its competitors. It is, by far, the most land-efficient and resource-efficient oil crop on earth.

Yet palm oil’s environmental footprint has undeniably been stained by irresponsible practices. Illegal land clearing, peatland burning, and exploitative labor conditions have given the industry a deservedly controversial reputation. But these are not inevitable consequences of growing oil palm. They are the result of poor governance, lax enforcement, and profit-driven expansion at the expense of sustainability. 

Abandoning palm oil will not prevent these failures; it would simply shift the burden onto other crops, with even greater ecological costs.

Metric	Oil Palm	Rapeseed	Sunflower	Soybean
Fertilizer Use per ton of oil	Low	Medium	Medium	High
Pesticide Use per ton of oil	Low	Medium	Medium	High
Water Requirement	Low	Medium	High	Very High

Reform palm oil, not boycott

Instead, the imperative is to reform the way palm oil is produced. Initiatives like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and government-led moratoriums on new forest clearing are steps in the right direction —but they must go further. 

Truly sustainable palm oil production demands zero-deforestation policies, full supply chain traceability, fair treatment of indigenous communities, and financial support for smallholder farmers to adopt regenerative agricultural practices. Reform, not retreat, is the only viable path forward.

Crop	Oil Yield (tons/hectare)	Relative Land Needed (to match palm oil)
Oil Palm	2.5	1x (baseline)
Rapeseed (Canola)	0.6	~4.2x more land
Sunflower Seed	0.5	~5x more land
Soybean	0.4	~6.25x more land

Boycotting palm oil may offer emotional satisfaction, but it ignores the scale and complexity of global food systems. Worse, it risks triggering a chain reaction of environmental damage. 

High-yield crops like oil palm are not the villains in the climate crisis; they are potential lifelines. Without them, the race to feed a growing global population would devour even more of the planet’s remaining natural ecosystems.

The hard truth is this: efficiency is not an option in the 21st century—it is a necessity. Palm oil, if produced responsibly, represents a crucial tool for balancing human needs with environmental protection. Rather than demonizing the crop, the world must demand and build a future where palm oil’s extraordinary efficiency works in service of, not against, the planet.

-- Rangkaya Bada