Palm oil: production and exports 2015–2023, destinations and economic footprint (GREPALMA)

GREPALMA's public presentation 'Socioeconomic statistics to 2023' (prepared in 2024 from member, Banguat and USDA data) reports: 180,614 ha planted in 2023 (3.12% of farmland, the sixth crop after basic grains, coffee, sugar cane, cardamom and rubber) and 230 growers; fresh fruit bunch production of 4,052,652 t in 2023 (−15% from 4,789,496 t in 2022, after +17% in 2022); crude palm oil output of 510 thousand t (2015), 625, 740, 862, 863, 922, 941, 1,110 (2022) and 933 thousand t (2023), 1.16% of world production; exports of 877,794 t in 2023 (470,923 t in 2015; 878 thousand t against 400 thousand in 2014) earning US$851.4 million, with Guatemala the world's third-largest exporter (900 thousand t, 1.8% of global trade in 2023, per the USDA table the presentation reproduces) after Indonesia and Malaysia; between 74% and 82% of output is exported depending on the year; main destinations the Netherlands, Spain, Mexico, El Salvador, Italy, Germany and Nicaragua; more than 30 thousand jobs in the North, North-east and South regions; and an economic footprint the guild estimates at Q12,661 million in 2023 (1.6% of GDP), with Sayaxché (Petén), Puerto Barrios (Izabal) and Fray Bartolomé de las Casas (Alta Verapaz) the municipalities where palm exceeds 50% of municipal GDP. Sustainability: 115,679 ha (64% of the area) under voluntary standards and 16,479 ha linked to deforestation over 31 years (0.67% of national deforestation 1989–2020, per GREPALMA with SIFGUA and Satelligence).

The research is written in English; quoted figures, source names and the titles of legal instruments stay in the language their source published them in.