Agricultural History Review, Volume 70 Part 2 (2022), p. 334

Indonesia and Malaysia are currently the first and second-largest producers of palm oil in the world, respectively. Hence, you may be forgiven for assuming that much of the history of oil palm, or at least its meaningful commercial history, lies in the south-east Asian region. My own writings reflect this: in my book on palm oil and transboundary haze (The haze problem in southeast Asia: Palm oil and patronage [Routledge, 2015]), I only make brief mention of the how the four oil palms that gave birth to the Southeast Asian palm oil industry were brought over to Buitenzorg (now Bogor) Botanical Gardens in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) from West Africa in 1848.

Oil palm: A global history begins in West Africa as well, but dedicates six entire chapters to the oil palm’s journey across Africa and across the globe (through Europe and the Americas), before even beginning its south-east Asian story. It is divided into three sections, Part 1, Africa and the Atlantic World, Part II, Oil Palms and Empire, and Part III, Expanding the Oil Palm Frontier.

Through Jonathan E. Robins’s excellent storytelling and supplementary materials, we learn about oil palm’s role in almost all major events in modern world history, including colonial mercantilism and decolonization, anti-slavery and women’s rights movements, the deterioration of the whaling and tallow sectors, the modernization of the food processing and packaging industries, and the world wars. Seen through the author’s eyes, palm oil is not a ‘mere’ commodity subject to the whims of the international market; it shaped the world as we know it today.

However, Robins refrains from overly romanticizing palm oil, and instead consciously takes the time to walk the reader through the logic of some of his most interesting conclusions. A particularly fascinating piece of academic detective work involved debunking the rumour that palm oil was found buried in Egyptian pyramids. He explains how, with the term ‘palm’ being used as an identifier of such a broad array of plants, this has often resulted in the conflation of any mention of palm oil throughout time and space to mean oil from Elaeis guineensis. In ancient Egypt, what was used was more likely oil from date palms.

There is plenty in this book to discover, even for someone who may consider themselves a scholar of the commodity. For example, did you know there was such a thing as palm wine? Well, neither did I. I learned that one of the big hurdles to the commercialization of oil palm in the early days was the locals’ taste for the sweetly intoxicating palm wine, which was obtained by cutting the entire palm down and ‘milking’ it. This was, of course, counter-productive in supporting a consistent supply of palm oil – an oil palm needs to mature for several years before regularly bearing fruit.

Nowadays, the world is seemingly divided into clearly drawn camps either for or against palm oil. Intentionally or not, Robins echoes this current reality in his historical analysis, painting a picture of a complicated commodity, one that is often loved and hated at the same time. For example, as an ingredient in food, he picks up excerpts from cookbooks and colonial records to show how one person may sing praises to an oil that ‘smells of violets’ while another expresses disgust at the reddish sheen that it leaves on fried foods. Robins also gives his take on how oil palm went from being marketed as an exotic cure-all to being labeled as a serious health hazard. However, as a good historical book should, the author refrains from adopting a judgmental voice, one way or another.

One striking observation I took away from this book was that a lot of the challenges related to the commodification of palm oil in the past are similar to those experienced today. In chapter 7, a sentence describing the situation in pre-independence Malaya jumped out: ‘[P]lanters could solve or abate nearly any problem with more land, more labour, more chemicals, and machines’. I would say that, today, we are still trying to do the same thing, rightly or not. Planters past and present are still trying to figure out the best ways to effectively mechanize the farming and processing of palm oil. Commercial plantations worldwide are still tweaking community- and labour-relations systems in attempts to find the perfect arrangement to decrease conflict and increase productivity. Palm oil also continues to fight a battle of perception: in the past, its African origins made people turn their noses up at palm oil, while today, environmental concerns give it a bad reputation.

Part III of this book brings us back to present times and alludes to future directions. Here, Southeast Asia unsurprisingly takes centre stage and the author flexes his ability not only to talk history, but also to handle contemporary matters. Several chapters are dedicated to the complicated and continuously developing land use processes that have shaped the sector in Indonesia and Malaysia. Robins also takes us full circle as he explores how current market trends point towards a revival of sorts of palm oil commercialization in places visited earlier in this book: West Africa and Latin America.

This book will appeal equally to scholars of palm oil and to those with a casual interest in the crop. It is an eye-opener for anyone who thinks south-east Asia ‘made’ palm oil into the world’s most important vegetable oil. It also soberingly highlights the struggle, still ongoing today, of ‘taming’ the mighty oil palm to benefit humans. Robins shows us why it should really be no surprise that palm oil is such a divisive commodity today: even after centuries of trying, it has always been difficult to do palm oil ‘right’.