Professor Alain Rival is Regional Director for South East Asia and Focal Point for Oil Palm Research at CIRAD, the internationally-renowned French Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development. Dr Rival is also Professor of Biology and Physiology, He coordinates several international collaborative research projects and has published widely on plant biotechnology.

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• Part 1 Diseases and pests1.Fungal diseases affecting oil palm: Tan Joon Sheong, Lee Yang Ping and Sharifah Shahrul Rabiah Syed Alwee, Felda Global Ventures Research and Development, Malaysia; Létizia Camus-Kulandaivelu, Maxime Mercière, Alba Zaremski and Frédéric Breton CIRAD, France; and Christophe Klopp, INRA, France; 2.Diseases affecting oil palm: Elizabeth Alvarez, CIAT, Colombia; 3.Insect pests affecting oil palms: Laurence Beaudoin-Ollivier, Université de Montpellier and CIRAD, France; 4.Integrated pest management in sustainable palm oil production: Edgar Clive Turner and Julie Hinsch, University of Cambridge, UK; 5.The integrated management of bud rot disease and Phytophthora palmivora in oil palm: Gerardo Martinez, José Ignacio Sanz, Gabriel Torres, Greicy Sarria, Diana Velez, Franky Zuñiga, Yuri Mestizo and Francia Varon, Colombian Oil Palm Research Center – Cenipalma, Colombia; 6.Advances in disease-resistant oil palm varieties: Tristan Durand-Gasselin, Benoît Cochard and Hubert de Franqueville, PalmElit-CIRAD, France; Part 2 Nutritional and sensory quality7.Bioactive compounds in oil palm: Ravigadevi Sambanthamurthi, Ng Mei Han and Choo Yuen May, Malaysian Palm Oil Board, Malaysia; 8.Palm oil and health: Jean-Michel Lecerf, Institut Pasteur de Lille, France; 9.The nutritional value of red palm oil: Hélène Delisle, University of Montreal, Canada; Part 3 Sustainability and supporting smallholders10.Life cycle assessments of oil palm products: Cécile Bessou, CIRAD, France; Heinz Stichnothe, Thünen Institute of Agricultural Technology, Germany; Amir F. N. Abdul-Manan, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia; and Shabbir Gheewala, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailand; 11.Life cycle assessment (LCA) of palm oil in practice: the example of Malaysia: Vijaya Subramaniam, Zulkifli Hashim and Halimah Muhamad, Malaysian Palm Oil Board, Malaysia; 12.Modelling the environmental impacts of agriculture, focusing on oil palm: Paul N. Nelson, James Cook University, Australia; Neil Huth, CSIRO, Australia; Marcus Sheaves, James Cook University, Australia; Cécile Bessou, CIRAD, France; Lénaïc Pardon, CIRAD, France; Han She Lim, James Cook University, Australia; and Rai S. Kookana, CSIRO, Australia; 13.Certifying sustainability in oil palm cultivation: Marcel Djama, CIRAD and MOISA, University of Montpellier, France and Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia; 14.Balancing oil palm cultivation with forest and biodiversity conservation: Carl Traeholt, South East Asia Programme Director, Copenhagen Zoo, Malaysia; 15.Waste management and recycling in oil palm cultivation: Salman Zafar, BioEnergy Consult, India; 16.Understanding smallholders in oil palm cultivation: a case study from Sumatra: Pierre-Marie Bosc and Cédric Gaillard, CIRAD, France; 17.Closing yield gaps for small- and medium-scale oil palm producers: improving cultivation practices : J. I. Sanz, M. Mosquera and J. A. Beltrán, Colombian Oil Palm Research Center – Cenipalma, Colombia; 18.Artisanal mills and local production of palm oil by smallholders: Sylvain Rafflegeau, CIRAD, UPR Systèmes de Pérennes, France; Doris Nanda, Université de Yaoundé I, Cameroon; and Claude Genot, INRA-UR BIA, France;