**5. Mechanism through which oil palm cultivation mitigates or promotes food insecurity**

In addressing how oil palm mitigates or promotes food insecurity, we want to look at palm oil and the pillars of food security: availability, access, utilization and stability. There is the availability of palm oil in the tropical world – through production, distribution, and exchange. The crop is efficiently produced in comparison with other vegetable oil. Less land and other resources are required per hectare to produce palm oil and associated by-products. There is an efficient distribution system of the product through storage, processing, transport, packaging and marketing in most oil palm producing countries which eliminates waste in the value chain. This tends to make palm oil available in the countries that consume the product. A system of exchange or cash economy exists to acquire oil palm products in all seasons, thereby promoting food security. However, climate change affects the crop productivity and thus its products availability [28].

Oil palm products are accessible. They are affordable and preferable to individuals and households because of the nutrients in them. Palm oil, for instance, contains beta carotene, a precursor of vitamin A and also contains equal proportion of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids [29]. Oil palm products are sold in units that almost every household can access. Since the crop has been found to lift many of its growers out of poverty [30, 31], the revenue obtained from the sale of oil palm products can be used to access other food items not produced in the environment. Based on the crop income per hectare of average oil palm smallholder farmer estimated to be \$2,200 per annum in Nigeria [31] and \$1,400 per annum

#### *Oil Palm (*Elaeis guineensis*) Cultivation and Food Security in the Tropical World DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.98486*

in Indonesia [13], most families in oil palm producing communities are likely have enough financial resources to purchase food at prevailing prices or have sufficient land and other resources to grow their own food.

Oil palm farmers enjoy both direct access to food and financial resources. Many of them, especially those who integrate food crops into their farms, produce food using human and material resources available to them while some others purchase food produced elsewhere, with financial resources obtained from oil palm farming. However, access to food must be available in socially acceptable ways, without, for example, resorting to emergency food supplies, scavenging, stealing or other forms of coping strategies as experienced in the Kalangala region of Uganda where large oil palm companies stripped the locals of their agricultural land and were left without land to farm, though compensated. The amount paid could not keep them for long.

Palm oil and associated products are safe for human and livestock consumption, thereby promoting food utilization as a pillar of food security. With the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), emphasizing certification of oil palm fields and operations, palm oil is safe for ingestion and the nutrients therein are enough to meet the physiological requirements of each individual consumer. The Malaysian Oil Palm Council is doing a lot of sensitization about nutrition and palm oil preparation which can affect oil palm products' utilization and improve on food security.

Palm oil supply and prices can be considered to be relatively stable thereby making it possible to obtain the product supply over time. However, some forms of transitory palm oil food insecurity has existed in the past, thus making the products unavailable during certain periods of time. This has been due to drought resulting in crop failure and decreased food availability. There have also been cases of instability in markets resulting in food-price hikes causing transitory food insecurity. In virtually all oil palm producing nations, there are seasonal palm oil food insecurity resulting from the regular pattern of growing seasons of the crop. In Nigeria, for instance, the production level decreases during the rainy season which reduces the supply of the product to the market, thereby causing price rise. This limits the ability of some poor households to access the product or reduce the quantity bought.
