The production of food, fibre, oleochemicals and pharmaceuticals/ nutraceuticals by the oil palm industry is carried out under the progressive agricultural practices to ensure a safe and viable environment that is basic to sustainable development. Going back to basics requires two perspectives to be considered. The first is to have a telescopic global view that demonstrates the oil palm cropping system to safeguard the major areas throughout the tropics that have been planted with the crop be it from the individual field, plantation, company, national and international levels. The oil palm as an agroforestry indeed has developed into an efficient tree-based agricultural production system that can meet the growing food and fibre needs of the world expanding populations. It turns the soil, water and air resources into productive and sustainable inputs for the production of the palm oil products.

As a consequence of the global environmental requirement for palm oil to be sustainably produced, the industry has to adopt the second perspective of the microscopic approach, where the environmental needs emanated from the international, national and company levels are met by developing indicators on sustainability at the field. The industry has to demonstrate that the oil palm agroforestry cleans up the air by removing large quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through its excellent carbon sequestration ability. It improves the hydrological cycles through the rainforest effects and stabilizes the soil through the protective and robust rooting system together with its ample supply of leaf litter and closed canopy. The oil palm agroforest is a bio-diverse habitat for many plant and animal species unlike a mono-annual oil seed cropping system. The industry practices integrated pest management to preserve predators and to reduce use of pesticides.

Such an advanced and sustainable palm oil production system has to be planned, implemented and managed to obtain a higher level of yield per hectare. However, in the Malaysian oil palm industry, the yield per hectare has been stagnating since the mid 1980. It requires the industry to embark on a maximum economic yield exploitation. Here production must reach yield level that will result in the least cost per unit of production. High yield from improved genetics together with low unit production cost with appropriate soil fertility management and crop protection measures will give the industry the best chance to make profit even when prices are low. This no doubt will allow the plantation companies to make higher profits when prices are higher. Thus, going back to basics is efficiently managing and sustaining high yield to make it pay.