A camellia farm in Jiangxi province, China
Wan Xiang/Xinhua/Alamy
Replacing some existing vegetable oil crops with camellia plants could boost cooking oil production while reducing greenhouse gas emissions, water use and pesticide use, according to a modelling study.
That is because camellia is a high-yielding shrub that can thrive in places where some other oil crops struggle. The properties of camellia oil, also known as tea seed oil, suggest it could also be one of the healthier oils, but it is currently little-known and hardly used outside China.