InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA – Palm oil as the most productive vegetable oil is known to produce four to nine times from all kinds of other vegetable oil. It is the cheapest to sell within the average margin up t 20 percent if compared to the selling price of other kinds.
The profit got from palm oil is in the production process in every ton. It is cheaper about US$ 200 per ton than soybean production which could be about US$ 360 per ton. Soybean is the second cheapest production per ton. In a whole, there is no seed oil that its production process is almost the same with palm oil both in the harvest and the production cost.
As a matter of fact, palm oil cultivation also needs the least agricultural input of all kinds of vegetable (seed) oil. Palm oil needs about 2 kilograms (kg) of pesticide and 47 kg of fertilizer to produce one tons of oil. While soybean needs 29 kg of pesticides and 315 kg of fertilizer to produce 1 ton of oil. While radish needs 11 kg of pesticides and 90 kg of fertilizers to produce 1 ton of its oil.
Soybean, sunflower and radish need wider plantations five to eight times to produce one ton of oil than palm oil plantation does. For having extraordinary productivity, palm oil plantation spends cheapest cost of other kinds. Until now palm oil is the cheapest vegetable oil to produce.
The latest report from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) about palm oil revealed that the vegetable oil exports that contributed 41 percent to the vegetable oil production globally would be dominated by some producers. Indonesia and Malaysia would hardly produce two third of every vegetable oil export for the next decade.(Edi Suhardi/Praktisi Perkebunan Kelapa Sawit)
