NEAC said industry calculations suggested that the sector’s share of real gross domestic product could grow to 7.6% by 2020 from 3.2% in 2008 if the value-added gains from efficiency and innovation could be realised.

“This would translate into a yearly growth of 13.7% from 2009 to 2020.

“Palm oil exports can also grow by 7% per annum to RM84.6bil by 2020, probably more if new palm oil-based products and services can be successfully marketed,” it said.

Standing amid hundreds of African oil palms, their gray and desiccated fronds drooping to the ground, Edgar Barrera shakes his head and speaks of their death sentence.

"What we have is a technological disaster, an economic disaster and a social disaster," said Barrera, superintendent of the Bucarelia company's 12,000-acre African palm grove.

Barrera is referring to a mysterious, fast-spreading and deadly disease called "PC" that has devastated African palm plantations here in the Magdalena River valley area 200 miles north of Bogotá, the capital, and elsewhere in Colombia. More than 60 percent of Bucarelia's palm trees are dead or dying because of it, he said.

The Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities has no plan yet to make "sugar palms" or palm trees which produce sugar, as a new commodity source.