**1. Introduction**

The oil palm (*Elaeis guineensis Jacq) (Magnoliophyta: Arecaceae),* is a perennial monocotyledonous plant which belongs to the family *Arecaceae*. It is a crop of the humid tropics (rainforest belt). The pulp and nut that provide palm oil and kernel oil, respectively make oil palm a high yielding oil-producing crop [1, 2]. The production of the oil from oil palm fruit pulp and nut, has made the crop second to soybean oil in terms of world vegetable oil production while its demand is expected to increase in future [1, 3, 4]. The oil palm is an evergreen crop that may be used to conserve the environment while palm oil accounts for 21% and 47% of the global oil and fats production and trade [3].

Palm oil is grown in many countries across Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia. The global market for palm oil and other products is dominated by Indonesia and Malaysia which collectively account for 84% of global production and other producers include Thailand, Colombia, Nigeria, Guatemala, and Ecuador. In 2018, the world produced 72 million tonnes of oil palm. Indonesia accounted for 57% of this (41 million tonnes), and Malaysia produced 27% (20 million tonnes [5]. Palm produce contributes more than 15% of the non-oil revenue of Nigeria. The industry provides extensive employment opportunities for Nigerians involved in the production, processing, marketing and distribution of both the main raw materials and the downstream products.

Palm oil is a versatile product which is used in a range of products globally. In the broad sense, it is used as **Foods**: over two-thirds (68%) is used in foods ranging from margarine to chocolate, pizzas, breads and cooking oils; **Industrial applications**: 27% is used in industrial applications and consumer products such as soaps, detergents, cosmetics and cleaning agents; and **Bioenergy**: 5% is used as biofuels for transport, electricity or heat. Palm oil and other palm products have always been used for food/pharmaceuticals/industrial and technological purposes [1, 2]. Palm oil is well suited to various food uses, particularly cooking fats and deep-frying oil, and it appears in bakery products, potato crisps and other snacks, and ice-creams and soap, margarine and cooking fat [1, 3]. Lower quality oils are used for non-edible purposes, such as soaps, resins, candles, glycerol, fatty acids, inks, polishing liquids and cosmetics. From oil palm are produced different basic products: crude palm oil (CPO), neutralized palm oil (NPO), refining bleached and deodorized palm oil (RBD), palm olein, palm stearin, palm kernel oil and palm kernel cake or meal [1, 2]. Due to the recent increase in quality and availability, and developments in technologies: refining, fractional and hydrogenation, palm oil has become highly diversified in its uses. Some of these uses are fatty acid manufacture, oleochemicals in general, additives to animal feed stuffs, potato crisp making, bread and cakes. The new compounds produced from palm oil are known collectively as oleochemicals most of these are molecules with different fatty acids attached to various simple functional groups, such as acids, amines or alcohols [1, 3], and include sulfonated methyl esters, polyols and polyurethanes. Several minor constituents of palm oil can be extracted and used separately, such as carotein, vitamin E and sterols.

The rainforest agroecologies of the humid tropics is characterized by wet and dry season transition and variability in seasonal weather conditions. In this zone, the annual rainfall ranging from 1500 to 2000 mm distributed in a bimodal pattern which results in the rainy and dry season. The dry season is a terminal drought situation characterized by inadequate rainfall, soil moisture deficit, high vapor pressure deficit and temperatures and very clear sky (high intensity of solar radiation [6]. Such unfavorable weather condition has been reported as the cause of the massive seedling and fruiting tree mortality in the dry season [7, 8]). It has been reported that high percentage of oil palm seedlings died on the field during the first and second dry season as a result of soil moisture deficit [7]. Although, fruit trees in plantations (cacao, kola, coffee, citrus species and oil palm) are seldom irrigated, despite the challenges of weather variability and extremity of the tropics. Efforts to develop sustainable production systems for oil palm would involve the evaluation of the value of agronomic practices in the amelioration of extreme growing environmental conditions especially the hydrothermal stresses of the dry season on seedling survival on the field in order to attain optimum seedling population in the field.

Climate Change (temperature and rainfall) scenarios for the deciduous and evergreen rainforest zones of West Africa including Nigeria have been variously constructed using process-based methods that rely on the General Circulation

*Oil Palm-Based Cropping Systems of the Humid Tropics: Addressing Production… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98257*

Models (GCM) in conjunction with Simple Climate Models (SCM). The results have indicated projected decline in mean annual rainfall and increases in temperature in year 2020, 2050 and 2080 respectively. The projected climatic changes will exacerbate soil moisture and thermal conditions during the dry season (November to March) and aggravate the vulnerability of crops to such climatic conditions [9]. The changing growing environmental conditions (marginal soils and extreme weather events) impose constraints on cacao growth and productivity. In order to alleviate the constraints imposed by changing growing environmental conditions (marginal soils and extreme weather events) on fruit tree performance. It is imperative to develop climatic-stress adaptive strategies for the fruit tree-based agroforestry systems of the humid tropics in the wake of changing climate/weather conditions (climate change and weather variabilities).
