Oil Palm
The oil palm is the most productive oil crop on Earth — a wet-tropical palm that yields more oil per acre than any rival. Its need for constant heat and heavy year-round rain confines it to the equatorial lowlands, where Indonesia and Malaysia dominate world supply.
How it grows
Oil Palm grows high on a palm, in clusters below the crown of fronds.
What it’s worth to grow
Farm-gate value = the price farmers are paid per kilogram (FAOSTAT producer prices, median of 81 positive country-year observations spanning 2018–2024). It tracks how costly and labour-intensive a crop is to grow — almonds and vanilla command a premium; potatoes and cereals are cheap staples.
Where Earth's climate suits oil palm
Climatic suitability only — scored for every 0.5° of the planet from this crop's temperature and rainfall tolerances (FAO EcoCrop) on AgroClim 1991–2025 normals (AgERA5 temperature, CHIRPS/ERA5 rainfall). It shows where the rain-fed climate permits the crop, not where it is grown today; irrigation lets many crops thrive in drier country than the map suggests (California, Egypt, the Indus and Nile).
Who grows it — and where the climate merely allows it
The climate where it grows
— mean monthly temperature ▍ monthly rainfall — averaged over the actual growing areas (the suitable cells) inside each country, so it reflects where the crop is really grown, not the national average. AgroClim 1991–2025 normals. The 🌧 badge is the last 3 months’ rainfall as a percentage of the 1991–2020 CHIRPS normal (through 2025-12) — the current drought/deluge signal.
Climate envelope · FAO EcoCrop
Deep bar = optimal range; pale bar = absolute tolerance. Beyond the pale bar the crop fails. Latitude tolerance ±20° · soil pH 3.2–8.
Growing calendar & hazards
In the ever-wet tropics it fruits continuously, with bunches cut year-round on a roughly 10–14 day round.
- Drought. A dry season depresses bunch formation months later.
- Cold. It has no frost tolerance and stalls below ~15°C.
- Deforestation. Its expansion is a leading driver of tropical rainforest and peatland loss.