As the palm oil industry makes efforts toward more sustainable practices, land management issues still affect the environment and communities surrounding palm oil production facilities. Despite these drawbacks, palm oil production continues to increase.
In 1976, global production of palm oil yielded 48 million metric tons, but over the last four decades, palm oil production has quadrupled, says Mark Zavodnyik, tropical oils trader at AAK. In 2014, production yielded 200 million metric tons.