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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10357781136495379722018-09-17T14:09:12.345+08:00Malaysian Palm Oil: Getting the Facts Rightby Tan Sri Datuk Dr Yusof Basiron, CEO of Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC)Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-45372651252131683852011-10-24T10:29:00.002+08:002011-11-09T10:37:05.204+08:00Sustainability in Aviation Fuel: Palm Oil is Part of the Solution

For many years, the aviation industry has been criticized for its high carbon GHG emission. Of the total global emissions, 56 % comes from burning of fossil fuels and 17 % from agriculture. The aviation industry alone contributes 649,000,000 tonnes of GHG emission annually which represents 2 to 3 % of the total globally! The Boeing Company and other aviation industry operators held a Forum in Kuala Lumpur recently to explore new sources of renewable biofuels for the aviation industry.

In comparison, calculations reveal that emissions from the oil palm industry are indeed very small. The world oil palm area of 14 million hectares is only 0.25% of global agricultural land. Therefore, the GHG emission from the oil palm industry is 0.25% x 17% or 0.04% of the total global GHG emission. At the country level, Malaysia's oil palm cultivated area of 4.85 million hectares represents 34.6% of the world's oil palm cultivated area and hence its GHG footprint is 34.6% x 0.04 % or 0.014% of the global GHG emission. Even doubling the cultivated area for oil palm in Malaysia would see a negligible increase of its GHG footprint to 0.028% of global emission.

The negligibly small GHG footprint of the oil palm industry has attracted the aviation industry operators (hence their presence in Kuala Lumpur for the Forum) to consider the use of palm oil biofuel to help reduce emission levels from the aviation industry. As indicated above, doubling the production of palm oil in Malaysia will not add much to the carbon footprint of the oil palm industry, instead, it will provide 18 million tonnes or 8.6 billion gallons more of potential jet biofuel. Total consumption of aviation fuel per year is estimated at 70 billion gallons. A 12 % replacement of the world aviation biofuel can be achieved if the Malaysian production can be doubled to cater to this demand.

The road map for inclusion of biofuel in aviation fuel begins modestly with an initial blend share of 1 % by 2015. This could be increased gradually with an improvement of 1% additional biofuel in the fuel blend annually so that GHG emissions will be maintained at current levels despite exponential growth in future global air travels. Malaysian palm oil potentially fits the road map due to its ability to replace a moderate (12%) percentage of world aviation biofuel demand. Palm oil from other sources could also be considered until a long term plan by the aviation industry to meet its target replacement of 50% blend of biofuel in aviation fuel is achieved.

Such large demand for bio-renewable aviation fuel can be supplemented if the biomass generated by the oil palm industry can be harnessed for conversion into aviation biofuel. Palm oil makes up only 10 % of the biomass produced by the oil palm tree. The remaining 90% (dry weight basis) can be partly converted into biofuel using BTL technology or bio-refinery which is being developed rapidly around the world.

Only palm oil can provide a solution for practical consideration. Other oilseeds cannot produce the quantities envisaged because of the inherent low yield per hectare per year of between 5 to 11 times less than that of palm oil. Figure 1 below shows countries capable of supplying excess vegetable oil into the world market which are limited to Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil producers. With doubling of production through productivity and hectarage expansion, and employing other palm biomass for further conversion into aviation fuel, the availability could well meet the future target of having 50% blend of biofuel into the aviation fuel mixture.

Figure 1

Palm oil meets the certification criteria for sustainability as many producers in Malaysia have volunteered to participate in the certification schemes and have obtained their certificates from certifying bodies such as the RSPO and ISCC. A minor obstacle to the successful implementation of the aviation biofuel plan is the relatively high cost of biofuel in comparison to petroleum derived aviation fuel. Lack of an excess supply from other vegetable oils and a high demand for palm oil for food will cause market forces to price palm oil above petroleum fuel. Otherwise, palm oil will be burned as fuel. This will ensure that its price will remain above the price of petroleum fuel and petroleum price will be the floor price for palm and other vegetable oils.

With the planned expansion of oil palm production, the necessary increase in supply to meet the needs of the aviation industry can be achieved. The food versus fuel debate does not apply as the main consideration is which profitable crop to plant on a scarce available agricultural land (large areas of degraded land not under forest reserves) where oil palm can be grown. Non-food oil crops such as jatropha can also be grown on degraded land but it yields only 20 % that of oil palm and is far more expensive to produce thus making it a much less attractive solution.

Consumers worldwide must be willing to pay the cost to reduce carbon GHG emission from the aviation industry. Plans by EU to impose carbon tax on the aviation sector are a step in the right direction. It is imperative that the money raised goes to compensate farmers who toil to produce the extra supply of raw material for the aviation fuel industry. Currently, much emphasis has been placed on the certification process for sustainability that the administrative charge consumes up to 80% of the money raised to incentivize the production of renewable biofuel. Ironically, the cost for employing auditors and paying for membership fee of certification bodies is more than the rate of compulsory research funding imposed on the Malaysian palm oil industry!

New opportunities for an increased supply of palm oil based aviation biofuel can be realised through more research and allocation of funds. However, if the cost of certification is higher than the investment in research, and if the carbon tax benefits only the bureaucracy, this will result in a slow development of aviation biofuel from oil palm sources. Development of aviation biofuel from other vegetable oils will be next to impossible. Oil palm is the only viable solution in the long term.

The choice is limited for the aviation industry. It cannot harness hydro, wind or solar power to fly jet planes. Most other plant biomass has low output to input energy ratio of 3:1 compared to 9:1 for oil palm. Oil palm is the best and only choice so far until miracles occur or algae technology becomes successful. Even petroleum fuel is not the most viable choice in the long term; its supply is finite and the topping point curve (Fig 2) shows that supply will start to decline in a few years from its peak. By then almost everything will be expensive except sustainably produced raw materials such as palm oil if future development in production capacity is well planned with adequate upfront investment in R & D.

Figure 2

Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-22676316231200842682011-08-19T19:37:00.001+08:002011-09-08T10:09:30.294+08:00A Scam Behind the Australian Palm Oil Labelling Bill?
 Western NGOs have been using the Victoria Zoos network to mount anti palm oil campaigns in Australia by making allegations linking palm oil production to deforestation and orang utan habitat destruction. Heightened publicity is needed in these campaigns and signatures of sympathizers have been carefully obtained to show public support. The campaign provides Western NGOs a platform for a much needed publicity profile. A Bill was then tabled in the EU and Australian Parliament seeking for palm oil to be mandatorily labeled instead of being included under the vegetable oils category as is customarily used for labelling all vegetable oils used in food products.

In the original version of the Bill which was submitted to the Australian Senate, certified sustainable palm oil was required to be labeled separately when RSPO certified palm oil is used in food products sold in Australia. Although the term referred in the Bill is to provide for "right of consumers to know to enable them to make an informed choice", the intention was to encourage the use of certified sustainable palm oil while normal palm oil would be negatively perceived through the NGOs anti palm oil campaigns.

WWF, a core supporter of the campaign was also the only RSPO member who supported the Bill at the Senate Committee hearing. RSPO was after all initiated by non - other than WWF. By supporting the Bill, WWF's interest to have control of the palm oil supply chain is served by only allowing certified palm oil to be mandated as the sole form acceptable for use in either Australia or the EU. The coordinated efforts of NGOs resulted in both Australia and EU initiating a similar Bill.

A clear conflict of interest arises when one studies WWFs campaigns in Australia. WWF is aware that the EU and Australian Parliament will reject specific endorsement of its certified palm oil. Although this has indeed happened, WWF benefitted from the heightened publicity as this helped to steer public interest to donate funds to save the orang utan through advertising campaigns carried out on Australian TV. Judging by the frequent appearances of the advertisement, there must surely be a good source of income generated by WWF to justify the advertising expenditure.

At the recent hearing by the Economics Committee of the Lower House, it was ironic to witness how many parties were dragged into the legislative process to oppose the ludicrous Bill should the sole purpose of the anti-palm oil campaign and the labelling Bill is to enable WWF to raise funds. Furthermore, in the current modified form of the Bill as discussed at the hearing by the Committee, the objective of the bill is no longer relevant, or related to food safety, except to "provide consumers right to know". What happens should consumers later demand that coconut oil be labeled in all products sold in Australia? Would a new labelling bill be created? We do wonder if NGOs like WWF have a real concern for consumer issues or are instead more focused collecting funds which are easily generated through publicity created using the orang utan icon.

What would happen if the Bill, should it be passed becomes a trade barrier and destroys the income of numerous Malaysian smallholders who depend on oil palm cultivation to survive? I would not protest should money from well meaning and affluent Australians is diverted to WWF funds for a noble cause. But a question we need to ask as donors - are any of these funds collected by the Australian WWF indeed channeled to conservation of orang utan habitats in Sabah or Sarawak, the states where orang utan are found in Malaysia ?

As almost 100% of palm oil imports by Australia come from Malaysia, is it not right that the money collected for such a purpose is channeled to the conservation of the orang utan in Malaysia? The Malaysian palm oil industry has shown a commitment by offering a matching grant should funds be directed to orang utan conservation projects under the Malaysian Palm Oil Wildlife Conservation Fund (MPOWCF). The active sponsors of the orang utan projects in Sabah and Sarawak are also listed and acknowledged indicating transparency in work undertaken for a good cause.

Committee members of the Australian parliament have spent a lot of time and effort going through the various stages of making sense of a Bill whose sole intention is for NGOs to raise funds in the name of conservation. Officials from the various Australian Government Ministry's and food industries who are aware of the complications that will arise have not shown any support for the Bill. Even if passed, the Bill will only be good for the internet shelf because a similar Bill first introduced in 2008 was rejected by the authority involved in formulation of food standards in Australia. It should be brought to the attention of the Australian Parliament that a similar Bill on separate palm oil labelling was also recently rejected by the EU parliament .The bright side of the whole debate was the endorsement at the hearing by relevant authorities on palm oil's nutritional attributes for use in food, and an agreement that sustainability should not be addressed in mandatory food labels as this falls under the category of social issues. Instead, voluntary labeling can be used to promote specific traits.

If deforestation is genuinely an issue of concern for the Green NGOs, I was able to remind the debate that Australia with a smaller population was deforesting (over half million hectares per year between 2000 and 2010) at rate that is 5 times higher than that by Malaysia; forest to total land ratio in Malaysia is 56 % compared to 17% for Australia; and agricultural land to forest area ratio for Malaysia is 1 to 3 whereas it is 3 to 1 for Australia despite its smaller population.

If WWF and other green NGOs are keen to stop deforestation, Australia would be a better place to focus. There are many Australian animals that are already extinct or endangered and many more Australian agricultural products that they can target to be mandatorily labeled to support "consumers' right to know".

Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-62709422300916674642011-06-27T22:05:00.001+08:002011-09-08T10:06:56.397+08:00Australian Labelling Bill on Palm Oil Against WTO Provisions
If palm oil has to be labelled for all food products marketed in Australia, it is likely to disrupt trade. Imports of food products will be affected as the palm oil content of food manufactured overseas is not labelled specifically as required by the proposed bill. Local manufacturers will need to have new and specific labels to be used whenever palm oil is contained in a product. This will be a costly exercise for manufacturers.

One claim for justifying the palm oil labelling bill is to inform consumers on the presence of palm oil which has 50 % saturated fatty acids even though the total saturated fatty acid contents of the fats used would already be indicated in the nutrition panel of the food label. If palm kernel oil or coconut oil which has much higher (over 90 %) saturated fatty acid content is used, separate labelling for these oils is not required. The 'vegetable oil' label can continue to be used. This will be a discriminatory use of the labelling law against the interest of palm oil, and will violate the WTO provisions. Malaysia and Indonesia will be compelled to complain to the WTO to ask Australia to remove the discriminatory treatment on palm oil afforded by the palm oil labelling bill.

The bill also implies that a product derived from legitimate agricultural land that was previously forest has to be labelled to inform consumers on environmental impact such as deforestation and population of iconic animals such as orang utans. The koala bears and the Kasowari birds are iconic and lovable animals that once roamed the forested land of Australia. These forests have been converted into sheep and cattle farms or sugarcane plantations. Consumers in Malaysia and Indonesia will need to know which of our beef, sheep and sugar products come from the land of the koalas and kasowaris. These products need to be labelled to respect consumers right to know.

If Malaysia and Indonesia were to follow the labelling bill example of Australia, the trade barrier game will become very messy, and probably printing of labels will emerge as a new business opportunity for Malaysia and Indonesia to replace the loss of trade in the export of palm oil to Australia.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-15909018268558855142011-06-09T20:13:00.002+08:002011-09-08T10:04:44.440+08:00Washington Dialogue on Sustainable Palm Oil – NGOs Fail to Sabotage Event
Recently, the Malaysian and Indonesian Ministers in charge of the palm oil industry had a roundtable dialogue with US NGOs, government officials and other food and non-food customers to discuss palm oil sustainability issues. Both the Malaysian and Indonesian delegation members were keen to hear green NGOs views and were prepared to provide counter viewpoints explaining how palm oil is produced sustainably in their respective countries.

What I have noticed lately is that the ultra green NGOs often fail to attend these dialogues. They prefer instead to raise their same old issues not in a face to face manner, but via their media channels on the internet, where they can repeat their infamous allegations on oil palm linking it to deforestation. This time, they broadcasted their counter views through the internet just a few days after the dialogue ended when the Ministers had returned home to their respective countries. In fact, our organizers informed us that the NGOs were so paranoid about the dialogue being held that they sent out emails twice unethically informing all invitees that the dialogue had been cancelled! The unscrupulous attempt to sabotage the meeting did not work and merit our condemnation. More than 50 important stakeholders including friendly NGOs attended the meeting. Nevertheless, we have to take this threat seriously. Next time around, the sabotage could be life threatening.

The Ministers decided to make a trip to the land of the green NGOs to dialogue on palm oil sustainability and to convey their convictions that palm oil does not cause any significant deforestation nor does it contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions(GHG). They were ready to explain these to the dialogue participants and additionally, share the more important secret of the vital contribution of palm oil towards global food security, national employment opportunities and lifting developing country farmers out of poverty. Palm oil as an agricultural crop has that potential.

I did notice, in reading the ultra green NGO statements which make reference to issues raised at the dialogue, that the information they received from their friends present at the meeting seemed to have deviated substantially from the original consensus arrived at the dialogue. All questions were fully answered by the delegation from Malaysia and Indonesia during the dialogue which ended with everyone fairly contented that their doubts and wrong perceptions were satisfactorily addressed.

During the dialogue, I elaborated on the progress made towards ensuring that our palm oil is the most sustainable in the oils and fats industry and this is restated as follows:-

Globally accepted definition of sustainability contains the three Ps: concern for the People, Planet and Profit. Palm oil fits the three Ps rather strategically.

 1. People: People globally benefit from palm oil through improved food security and an access to cheaper supply of cooking oil; and for the two main producer countries, namely Malaysia and Indonesia, palm oil earns an estimated US$40 billion a year in terms of export revenue. Most of the income would be well distributed to families in the rural farming communities who can then send their children for basic education which will enable them to earn a decent living in future, and live comfortably in the modern world where hand phones are a common need and ipads are occasionally a new household item to replace the need to buy newspapers.

Green NGO allegations of oil palm plantations encroaching into land belonging to indigenous people in Borneo are already being addressed by the authorities. The indigenous people truly want a share of income from the development of the land in the vicinity of their traditional villages and long houses. Oil palm will help them achieve this, thus enabling them to have an assured income as opposed to their past and traditional practice of cutting logs and hunting animals from the forest (often illegally and unsustainably). In Malaysia, the authorities are undertaking perimeter survey of indigenous people community land-claims to ensure ownership is clearly established and overlapping claims on land are minimized. This will take some time to resolve and in all cases, the courts are there to help settle outstanding issues. Developed countries should understand that developing countries have to face such unresolved issues. That is why we are called developing countries.

2. Planet: Planet means environment conservation. Oil palm occupies only 6 % of the total land area of Indonesia. The ultra green NGO allegations that 2 million hectares of forests are destroyed to make way for oil palm cultivation every year in Indonesia is pure rubbish. The arithmetic simply does not add up. With these half baked figures, there would be 20 million hectares of oil palm plantations added between the year 2000 and 2010. The fact remains that Indonesia has only over 7 million hectares of oil palm plantations and not over 20 million hectares as implied by the ultra green NGOs!

Malaysia has a land area of 33 million hectares. It has envisaged that its total oil palm plantations of 4.85 million hectares are part of it allowable agricultural land which occupies about 25 % of the total land area of the country. The country has pledged to keep at least 50 % of its land area as permanent forest. The remaining 25 % of the country's land area would be utilized for industrial development, cities, towns and villages and other infrastructural facilities such as roads and highways, recreation areas, lakes and other water bodies. Under this strategy, the entire palm oil produced in Malaysia is already sustainable as it has a balanced provision of permanent forest and agriculture areas that meet the standard practiced by any developed country. Ideally, certification for sustainability should be undertaken for the whole country as one production unit for palm oil. All the elements relating to palm oil's sustainability, such as the need to conserve forests, are met when the whole country is regarded as one production facility for palm oil.

Ironically, the oil produced by developed countries is not sustainable and cannot be certified sustainable partly because it is often genetically modified and NGOs such as WWF have not been successful in forcing the US soyabean farmers to agree to have a sustainability scheme for soya bean oil.

3. Profit: The profit component in the requirement for sustainability is sufficiently met by palm oil production. Oil palm cultivation has undergone many cycles of replanting and yields have been maintained at a high level reflecting no deterioration in land fertility. The high yield of 10 times that of rivals such as soyabean means that oil palm plantations remain profitable whether operated by big plantation operators or by smallholders.

Misguided campaigns against palm oil
The current contention by green NGOs that only WWF introduced RSPO certified palm oil must be used in their countries is a big disservice to the thousands of small oil palm farmers globally who aspire to have fair access for their palm oil into the world markets. These farmers have similar aspirations to those of developed country small farmers who hope to export competing oilseeds and oils that they produce to the rest of the world. The recent initiative of green NGOs to use girl scouts to propagate campaigns against palm oil is indeed shameful. It will only poison their young minds by teaching them to spread lies. Their actions may well lead to a restricted market access for palm oil which will affect the livelihood of millions of poor farmers in the developing countries. Without a steady source of income, poor farmers and rural communities who need to survive will resort to more deforestation and animal hunting, leading to unsustainable conservation of forests and wildlife. Will the girl scouts take responsibility for putting developing country farmers and their families into a life of misery?

The ultra green NGOs, the green politicians and some concerned individual consumers who act against palm oil should read the latest interview given by a WWF official where he states that the anti-palm oil campaign is a result of their environmental protection strategy based on their skewed definition of sustainability and transformation of markets.. WWF, as claimed, has identified some 15 top sectors with environmental risk which needs to be saved from further destruction. It appears that only environmental conservation is important in their definition of sustainability and not the 3 Ps as practiced universally. According to the WWF philosophy, as long as there is deforestation, the producers will be harassed accordingly. In addition, big international corporations have been identified to be shamed for using 'unsustainable' raw materials. WWF has proudly cited palm oil as their most successful project where some 6% of palm oil exports has been certified through the WWF introduced RSPO scheme for the last two years, while for other commodities, there was a poor success rate of the WWF initiated certification campaigns with no more than 1 % adoption after years of campaigning.

Palm oil producers did realize the skewed definition of sustainability propagated by WWF. As palm oil is already highly sustainable, the producers nevertheless agreed to give the RSPO scheme a try, hoping that those needing certified palm oil can have access to such products. It does not mean that non-certified palm oil is less sustainable or not sustainable. It is just that it has not undergone a certification process. For example, small holders who have operated their oil palm plantations for generations cannot afford the certification cost. WWF or other NGOs have not provided them with financial assistance to enable them to be certified. The RSPO scheme, if made mandatory will mean that the smallholders who are long established farmers (nothing to do with deforestation) will be victimized and their produce will be denied market access because they do not have the money to employ costly foreign auditors to certify their farms as per RSPO criteria in order to have certification for the palm oil produced.

It is therefore important for WWF to revise its strategy and devise a better scheme to include participation of the small holders which form 40% of the producers of palm oil in Malaysia. One way is to regard the whole country as one production unit for producing palm oil sustainably. Sustainable principles and criteria can be devised accordingly at a macro level to ensure there is proper balance between the need for the three Ps. Malaysia is probably ready to adopt such a scheme if NGOs such as WWF can support this move. Otherwise, there will continue to be a clash of definitions relating to sustainability. The end result will be a lose-lose situation with WWF failing to save the forests and conserving the environment and the oil palm farmers becoming victims of vicious NGO campaigns.

No sovereign government will agree to subject its most important economic sector such as oil palm to be dictated by NGOs such as WWF on how to produce this crop. This is akin to allowing backdoor legislation where rules governing the country's land resources are made not in parliament but by NGO driven organizations such as the RSPO.

Fearing that the monopoly of the WWF initiated RSPO scheme for palm oil will cost producers dearly, the Indonesians have established an alternative national sustainability scheme for palm oil (ISPO) to compete with the RSPO. ISPO is offering sustainability guarantee on a macro national scale since it is mandatory for all producers to comply. In addition, Indonesia has already initiated a moratorium on deforestation, to further give assurance that their oil palm cultivation does not cause deforestation.

Similarly, the Malaysians would probably introduce their own national sustainability scheme (MSPO) to be operated on a macro level by viewing the whole country as a single production unit for palm oil. The Germans have already introduced their own scheme for sustainable supply of raw material for biodiesel under the ISCC standard and the US has introduced a similar sustainability standard scheme under the EPA RFS series. None of them chose a WWF driven sustainability scheme as such a process would be tantamount to surrendering country level rule- making to foreign based NGOs.

While sustainability in raw material production is a common aspiration shared by producer countries and the NGOs, both defer on the definition of the concept. Producer countries cooperation to implement the NGO initiated RSPO scheme has been abused by the appearance of anti-palm oil campaigns where the demand is unclear. Many of the NGOs and green politicians take the stance that the oil palm should not exist because it was planted on former forest land and therefore causes deforestation. This extreme view has no room or provision for developing countries that need to develop their land assets, stabilize their forest reserve areas and generate employment to provide income for the rural farmers.

It must be realized that forcing unfair schemes to be adopted by poor farmers will be a futile attempt. The NGOs are not elected representatives of the farmers. It is the politicians who are entrusted to make legislations and look after the needs of the voters. There must be a better approach for attaining sustainability objectives perhaps through international agreements on how much forest each developing country should preserve and how much of the country's land area is allowed for agriculture. For now, it looks like it is a free- for- all rule of the jungle that the NGOs are practicing, condoning one set of rules and exemptions for the developed world and another set of rules on sustainability for Malaysia and Indonesia even though the two countries have shown willingness to get its palm oil certified for sustainability on a voluntary basis. Little appreciation is given to the fact that by using only 14 % of its land area to plant oil palm, Malaysia is able to supply almost 30 % of the world's oils and fats export requirements with 20 million tonnes of palm and palm kernel oils produced. If Malaysia were to produce the equivalent of 20 million tonnes by growing soyabean like the US or Brazil where no certification is needed to enter the world market, a land area of 50 million hectares would be needed compared with only 33 million hectares available as total land area of the country. The world should be thankful for the high productivity of oil palm. Income from palm oil generates enough prosperity to prevent forest from being converted into agriculture areas. Oil palm is a better paymaster for keeping forest intact as desired, compared to developed countries who have failed in their promise to compensate developing countries for keeping their forests conserved under the REDD scheme introduced by the UNFCC climate change agenda.

Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-34871304982744508502011-04-27T09:51:00.002+08:002011-09-08T09:59:10.270+08:00The Case of WENGOs Blindly Pushing for Labelling of Palm Oil
 I was invited by the Senate Committee on Community Affairs in Canberra, Australia to give a testimony on the mandatory labeling of palm oil proposed under the Truth in Labeling – Palm Oil Bill. It seems that palm oil is now a target not only of Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs), but also some ambitious Green Politicians of the developed world. On reflection, the WENGOs could be accused of taking the issue too far without thinking how their actions and allegations are un-justified and how these may affect the livelihoods of poor oil palm farmers in developing countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia.

I would not blame the Green Politicians for their lack of knowledge on the oil palm industry; the utterances that they made to support the Bill in Canberra clearly revealed their ignorance. They claim for example, that palm oil is a 'fruit' oil and should not be labeled as a 'vegetable' oil. Obviously, the WENGOs have diligently fed their Green Senators with the necessary cannon powder to debate on the Bill, but it was soon pointed out at the hearing that olive oil, produced as a fruit oil in the EU and Australia is also classified internationally as a vegetable oil because it comes from a plant or vegetable source as opposed to animal fats which come from animal sources.

The greatest flaw and danger in the proposed palm oil labeling Bill is its discriminatory treatment (or more accurately, mistreatment) of palm oil. The Bill was proposed based on WENGOs' allegations and not on well founded studies of the palm oil industry in Malaysia, Indonesia and many other developing countries in Tropical Asia, Africa and Latin America. If every nation were to create legislations to restrict the import of commodities produced by other countries based on allegations, there will soon be no more trade to be carried out internationally.

My testimony questioned the validity of the labeling Bill as it undermines an industry which is critical to Malaysia's prosperity; it would also impose higher costs on businesses of both countries and subject Australian consumers to a higher cost of living. Truth in food labeling should be driven by health issues, not political expedience, which is behind some of the campaigns revolving around this Bill.

The greatest impact of this Bill will be to single out palm oil as the only product in Australia to mandatorily be labeled for reasons other than health and nutrition, and to severely hinder efforts of developing countries to utilize palm oil as a means for alleviating poverty.

The Bill recommends palm oil to be labeled separately while other plant oils can continue to be labeled as vegetable oils. Certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) marking to indicate sustainable palm oil has to be mandatorily indicated. While this form of labeling was touted as a means of providing consumers freedom of choice, it will also give the WENGOs an opportunity to demonize palm oil and campaign against the use of uncertified palm oil in food products.

There is no objection to such a Bill if all oils are fairly mentioned when used in a product as practiced in countries such as in the USA. However, the supporters of the Bill have twisted the facts by saying that only palm oil is separately labeled in the USA. In addition, there is no objection to RSPO certified palm oil to be indicated on a voluntary basis as a promoted brand on food labels. This is currently the aim of RSPO i.e. to have products using its certified palm oil to carry its logo which is a form of positive voluntary labeling.

Ironically, more than 3.5 million tonnes of CSPO are already available to buyers, yet many are unwilling to commit or purchase the oil. Most are unwilling to pay the premium to help share the cost of certification incurred by the producers. So, instead of asking the buyers who had demanded for CSPO to support their cause, WENGOs have been forcing their Governments to enforce labeling rules to have CSPO marking, thus making it mandatory for them to use only certified palm oil hoping to avoid paying a premium.

WWF who introduced the RSPO scheme as a business to business initiative to improve market access of palm oil to the EU and Australia, promised that the scheme will be voluntary. Nevertheless, at the Canberra hearing, WWF supported the Bill which will cause palm oil to be mandatorily labeled. WWF has conveniently forgotten the business to business principle of RSPO, but instead, wanted the government to intervene by the use of legislation.

WWF is aware that a large number of oil palm smallholders cannot afford to be certified under the costly RSPO scheme even though they have nothing to do with deforestation or extinction of the Orang-utans. The smallholders can equally produce sustainable palm oil, except that it is non-certified. They have been farming and planting oil palms for generations on legitimate agricultural land where no Orang-utans exist just like other oilseed farmers elsewhere in the world. Even the RSPO Secretary General has opposed the Bill stating that it is unfair to single out palm oil which will lead to it being ostracized by WENGOs when other competing oilseeds are non-certified and involve the use of much larger land resources globally.

The contradictory behavior of WWF attracted my attention. Palm oil producers should examine the true intentions of WWF. Both the palm oil suppliers and food manufacturers (members of RSPO) present at the hearing were against the Bill, while WWF who is also a RSPO member glaringly supported the Bill. WWF should be asked to decide to choose to stay as a member of the RSPO, and work to help the success of the RSPO scheme as it was designed to be, or remain as an anti-palm oil NGO outside the RSPO like Greenpeace and others.

For example, Andrew Rouse, Acting Head of Sustainability, WWF mentioned in his testimony that palm oil is a worthy candidate for labeling as it has a major effect on deforestation and environment.

On one hand WWF is seen to be supporting the oil palm industry through the RSPO but on the other hand it is not only supporting the Bill in Australia but has been supporting Zoos Victoria's campaign against palm oil. According to Andrew Rouse mandatory labeling helps to drive consumer attention to an issue and provides an avenue for them to support CSPO.

Should WWF have intentions to use the RSPO scheme to control the palm oil supply chain by applying government legislation and consumer lobby, it should re-evaluate its intentions. Most countries especially the EU, are net importers of oils and fats and palm oil is a critical source to meet the shortage. Should Governments decide to legislate on the use of CSPO based on allegations made by WENGOs, claiming that oil palm causes deforestation and loss of Orang-utans, then producing countries could also decide to impose an export duty on CSPO so that smallholders who are highly burdened by this new regulation will be indirectly compensated for the increase in cost due to certification. As forty three percent of oil palm plantations are owned by smallholders, any new legislation by foreign governments will affect the poor smallholders who have over the years, through planting of oil palm, managed to enjoy a decent income and standard of living.

New legislations being imposed by Governments should always take into consideration the impact it will have on the supply chain and producing country and this should be based on proper impact assessment studies that are carried out by legitimate bodies. Imposing legislation based on distorted information by WENGOs with vested interest will eventually prove to be either ineffective or force oils and fats importing countries to be further burdened by paying more for an essential commodity to feed their population.

Manufacturers such as the Australian Food and Grocery Council (AFGC) are already calling upon their government to stop such legislation as this will eventually mean a higher cost for industries which will be passed on to consumers who are already facing tough times with the rather bleak world economic situation.

My formal testimony to the committee, corrected many of the allegations made against the palm oil industry by the WENGOs where I demonstrated the negative impact that labeling would have on producers of palm oil. I demonstrated that the palm oil industry in Malaysia is a critical sector for prosperity and economic development.

The behind-the-scene role that WENGOs have played in advancing their agenda, through campaigns involving Zoos, promoting misinformation, and neglecting the needs of Malaysia's rural poor and smallholders was clearly stated in my testimony.

"[The Bill] may make the adherents and supporters of Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund have a great degree of self satisfaction when sipping their skinny lattes, but to 570,000 Malaysians and their families there is no self satisfaction. All they see is a threat to the livelihoods.

"Do the international NGO's – Greenpeace and WWF – want to keep people in poverty?"

"Do they view the people of my country as participants in some sort of case study?"

"Malaysia pledged at the United Nations Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to retain at least 50% of its total land area under forest and that plantation crops would only be permitted on the land set aside for agriculture. Malaysia has greatly exceeded this target considering that 56% of its land is still under forests."

"Forty three percent of oil palm plantations are owned by smallholders. Palm oil companies have invested significantly in schools, roads, water and hospitals for their workers. The palm oil industry directly employs over half a million Malaysians. Hundreds of thousands more rely on these incomes."

In addressing the WENGO claims that oil palm plantations were a major threat to Orang-utans, I mentioned that the proposed Australian labeling legislation would have no benefit for the environment, forests or Orang-utan populations of Malaysia.

"It is unfortunate that the Orang-utans have been used, or more accurately misused, in this debate."

"Our industry is not a rapacious destroyer of either forests or Orang-utans. We have been accused of this, we have been pilloried on it – and it is totally inaccurate."

The Malaysian team at the inquiry had to correct many false allegations made against the industry by WENGOs.

WWF and the Palm Oil Action Group (POAG) claimed that oil palms removed nutrients from the soil, making the soil completely useless after 50 years. This was refuted by a Danish planter (a RSPO member) present to give his testimony. He advised the committee that the first oil palms on his Malaysian plantation run by his company were planted in 1918 and now the fifth generation palms were thriving in the same soil. His testimony proved to be more credible than the testimony by WWF and POAG.

The Senators also heard a moving testimony from a Malaysian witness from Sarawak of how the oil palm industry had opened opportunities for farmers in Malaysia especially Sarawak, supported their way of life and provided a better education for their children. All this had translated into a more informed community thus improving the well-being of the rural people. His testimony carried particular weight before the committee due to his ability to identify with under-developed communities, as acknowledged by some of the Senators. After all, he was born in a long-house located in a natural rainforest environment in Sarawak. (He did not choose to live and hunt in the rainforest as romantically expected by the WENGOs but went to England to study accountancy and now heads a company involved in planting oil palm for thousands of small farmers under the Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (SALCRA) scheme.)

The Committee was visibly taken aback by the strong testimony as well as the distinguished panel of Malaysian representatives as it reflected the importance of the issue to both Malaysia and the oil palm industry. The Committee was presented with facts not rhetoric; after all, the issue being discussed was not one that can be taken lightly when it would very well affect the livelihood of poor oil palm farmers who would be forced into poverty.

It is important for all of us to keep in mind that food is a basic necessity for people. As the world population grows, so will the demand for food items such as oils & fats. Many countries are already net importers of oils and fats. Compulsory labeling schemes to curb palm oil trade will only invite retaliation to counter the effect. For example, producing countries may impose higher export duties on CSPO to raise revenue to pay for certification costs. It is the consumer who will be most affected.

As for the Malaysian delegation, we were there to defend our right to use part of our country land area for agriculture to plant oil palm. The combined oil palm plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia account for only 0.23 % of global agricultural land area while the combined populations of Indonesia and Malaysia account for 3.9% of the world population. This demonstrates that both countries do not use even 1/10 of their proportionate rightful quota of land to plant oil palm.

Surprisingly, there were no questions directed at the carbon emission of our oil palm industry which is very small if not negative. I would not have hesitated to point out the massive carbon emission arising from the agricultural industry in Australia (millions of Australian ruminants such as cattle emit methane, a very potent GHG from their stomachs regularly). Australia is also a major producer, consumer and exporter of coal, a very dirty fuel with respect to GHG emission. The WENGOs conveniently overlook these big GHG emitters when their country's economy is critically dependent on them but choose instead to demonize the oil palm industry which is a negligible emitter of GHG in comparison. On reflection, it is not unreasonable that many commentators have accused them of practicing Green Colonialism.

Click here to read my testimony | PDF

Testimony of Dr Yusof Basiron Chief Executive Officer of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) to the Hearing of the Senate Community Affairs Committee (Truth in Labelling - Palm Oil) Bill 2010

Thank you, Chairman for the opportunity for the Malaysian Palm Oil Council to appear before this Committee and to participate in the consultation regarding the Truth in Labelling - Palm Oil Bill, currently being considered by the Committee. I am also authorized to appear before this Committee representing the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities of Malaysia.

Before I give some background to this issue, there are some points I would like to make.

Last week, the National Secretary of one of Australia's most influential trade unions said that his union would not support the Australian Government if just one of the members of his union lost his or her job as a result of Government carbon policy.

Other unions have made similar statements.

My organization, and indeed the government of my nation, would take the same view if the livelihoods of some 570,000 Malaysians were threatened.
This Bill, and the campaign that has been associated with it, has that potential.

Like your trade unions, and like your constituents, our industry will act to protect the jobs and the livelihoods of those who work within our industry and their families.
Truth in labelling should be driven by health issues, not political expedience, which is behind some of the campaigns revolving around this Bill.

It may make the adherents and supporters of Greenpeace and World Wildlife Fund have a great degree of self satisfaction when sipping their skinny lattes, but to 570,000 Malaysians and their families there is no self satisfaction. All they see is a threat to the livelihoods.

Do the international NGO's – Greenpeace and WWF – want to keep people in poverty? Do they view the people of my country as participants in some sort of case study? The commitment of our industry is sustainability and growing our industry. Non sustainability would inhibit our industry's growth.

Without that growth the lives of our industry's workers and their families would not improve.

Don't those who work in our industry have the right – and the opportunity – to improve their way of life?
Don't they deserve the dignity of providing for their families?
Don't they, and their children, deserve a more prosperous future?

Fortunately, with the opportunity the Committee has given me and my colleagues through this appearance the views of our industry, its workers and their families will be heard in this Parliament.

As well, by us presenting to this Committee, we can address the misinformation, disregard for the truth and misrepresentation that have been a feature of the campaign in support of the Truth in Labelling – Palm Oil.

This Committee, and through it the Parliament of Australia, will have before it fact, not fiction, truth not wild allegation and the views of the actual workers in our industry and not the views of those who presume to understand the day to day life of the people who work in our industry – the human face of our industry.

By way of better understanding on the part of the Committee, I am the Chief Executive of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, which is a Malaysian Government authority tasked with the promotion and expansion of the palm oil market. MPOC considers this Bill to be based on misleading claims, erroneous statistics and is directly aimed at harming the Malaysian economy and Malaysia's largest agricultural export - palm oil.

In particular, I wish to note to the members of the Committee that this Bill will have no benefit for the environment, forests or Orang-utan populations of Malaysia. It is unfortunate that the Orang-utans have been used – or more accurately misused – in this debate.

Our industry is not a rapacious destroyer of either forests or Orang-utans.

We have been accused of this, we have been pilloried on it – and it is totally inaccurate.

The greatest impact of this Bill will be to single out palm oil as the only product in Australia to mandatorily be labelled for reasons other than health or nutrition, and to severely hinder Malaysian Government attempts to utilise palm oil as a means for alleviating poverty in our country.

Our nation is not resource rich like Australia.

We do not have mountains of iron ore and other minerals to underpin our national economy and the prosperity of our citizens.

Palm oil is a major commodity in our national economy.

We have developed markets and we have grown the industry, sustainably and for the betterment of our people.

It is an industry of which we are proud and one which we intend to grow.

There are a number of claims that have been made regarding palm oil as a generic product, which are completely unfounded. Malaysia is the second largest exporter of palm oil in the world.

I wish to object to this Bill firstly because it seeks to classify palm oil as a single generic product based on the environmental impact of production methods without differentiating between country of origin. This is extremely misleading and defeats the stated purpose of the Bill, which is to protect the environment.

In relation to the erroneous and misleading claims made in support of the Bill, these issues have been addressed as a part of the Malaysian Government submission to the Committee.

However, I will go briefly over these claims one more time, merely to highlight the disingenuous nature of this piece of legislation. Palm oil cultivation does not cause deforestation in Malaysia. Malaysia pledged at the United Nations Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to retain at least 50% of its total land area under forest and that plantation crops would only be permitted on the land set aside for agriculture. Malaysia has greatly exceeded this target considering that 56% of its land is still under forests.

Palm oil cultivation does not threaten Orang-utan populations in Malaysia.

In Malaysia, large tracts of forests are being preserved permanently.

For every hectare of oil palm, the country preserves four hectares of permanent forest, which is a very healthy balance in terms of land use policy. Even the habitats of the orang- utans are preserved as the States of Sabah and Sarawak maintain about 50% or more of their land area under permanent forest.

The Sabah and Sarawak State governments have gazetted a number of forest areas known to contain higher populations of orang-utans as wildlife sanctuaries, national parks or forest reserves. Leading conservationists have noted that the primary threats to the orang-utan in Borneo are poachers, hunting by local people, poor regulation of existing conservation laws and mining. The Malaysian government and the palm oil industry area actively advancing programs to protect the orang-utan.

Palm oil is an extremely sustainable and viable plantation. It produces more oil per hectare of land, requires less fertilizer, generates 10 times more energy than it utilizes and also sequesters more carbon than other major vegetable oil crops. Palm oil also returns a higher income per hectare than almost any other agricultural crop.

Palm oil also has significant health benefits. While proponents of this Bill have made much of the saturated fat content of palm oil, I note that Australian consumers are already given access to the total saturated fat content of foods through the nutrition panel. Palm oil is trans-fats free.

Trans-fats have been banned by many sub-national Governments in the United States for being more harmful to heart health than saturated fats. I find it strange that proponents of this Bill would seek to mandatorily label palm oil on nutritional grounds at all when such a move, when combined with western environmentalists anti-palm oil campaigns, is more likely to harm Australian consumers' health than improve it.

Finally, the Malaysian Government wishes to stress again the importance of palm oil for the Malaysian economy and our efforts to alleviate poverty.

Forty three percent of oil palm plantations are owned by smallholders. Palm oil companies have invested significantly in schools, roads, water and hospitals for their workers. The palm oil industry directly employs over half a million Malaysians. Hundreds of thousands more rely on these incomes.

I note that the Bill recommends the use of sustainable palm oil or CSPO marking to indicate sustainable oil as a differentiating factor between countries or modes of production. I would however note to the Committee that the process of being certified under the Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil is highly costly for smallholders.

Furthermore, any labelling of palm oil whether indicated as sustainable or not, will significantly harm the Malaysian palm oil industry when combined with highly funded western environmentalist anti-palm oil campaigns.

In conclusion, I wish to endorse the formal policy of the Australian Government and Department of Foreign Affairs to support economic development of countries in ASEAN and in APEC economies by facilitating and promoting economic growth, trade and investment.

I ask that the Committee sees fit to continue this policy for the sake of the Malaysian people.

If there are any questions any of the Senators have, I and my colleagues are ready to answer them.

Thank you again for this opportunity.Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-61148711633105881252011-02-10T14:56:00.000+08:002011-04-01T14:59:46.240+08:00Palm Oil: How Greenies Threaten Jobs and Food Security
The Malaysian palm oil industry earned a healthy RM60 billion last year. This was an increase of RM 10 billion compared to 2009. Most plantation companies doubled their last quarterly profits compared to the previous year. The income generated by high prices as experienced by the palm oil industry led to rural townships around the country undergoing a mini economic boom. Clearly, the rural population benefited the most from the high prices of palm oil, rubber, cocoa and even pepper which form the major plantation commodities produced in Malaysia.

The economic contribution of palm oil and other plantation commodities provided the assurance of a remunerative source of income and unlimited employment opportunities throughout the year for the people of Malaysia. A day's work of harvesting oil palm fruits or tapping rubber trees for latex can provide a person with an income of more than US $30. In a country where two meals per day would cost only US $4, such an income is rather remunerative. Nobody should be deprived of a better life or even resort to begging as long as he or she is willing to put in a few hours of work in a day in our oil palm or rubber plantations. Malaysia enjoys almost full employment which also means that labour shortages exist especially in the plantation sector.

In contrast, rural population of many developing countries often earns a mere US$2 per day, and employment is limited or seasonal. Food is often unaffordable and as previously mentioned in my blog , one billion people on this planet suffer from food insecurity where daily meals are not assured. This is where employment opportunities offered by the plantation industries in Malaysia also benefit labour from other countries. The income earned by the 300,000 foreign workers employed in the Malaysian oil palm industry, ensures that there is food on the table on a daily basis for 1 million of their family members living back home in Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines and other neighbouring developing countries. In simple terms, the oil palm industry not only provides an income to Malaysians, but shares this benefit with an additional one million family members of workers who now do not need to go hungry to bed thus bringing cheer to so many poor people . How many industries can claim to do this?

The oil palm industry is also a major source of income for the government through the collection of corporate taxes. The benefits from such income will be more pervasive as the multiplier effects of government spending will impact education, health and infrastructural development. Essential food items are subjected to price control or subsidized in Malaysia, and this includes cooking oil for the public. The government taxes the palm oil industry in the form of a windfall tax and uses the money raised to make cooking oil affordable to the public. It is clear that palm oil provides solutions on many fronts: affordable food, lucrative income and overall stability to the country (bear in mind that high food prices and poverty have led to uprising in many developing countries recently).

Releasing the importance of the palm oil industry to the country's economy, the Hon. Prime Minister of Malaysia recently spoke of the narrow view taken by the greenies and their followers who want to tarnish the image of palm oil by linking it to deforestation. No country in the position of Malaysia or Indonesia which benefits from the palm oil industry would tolerate the unsubstantiated allegations made by the greenies to denigrate palm oil. Viewed on a broader perspective, palm oil is a saviour to the current global shortages in oils and fats as a result of insufficient production of soyabean and rapeseed oils. For these oilseeds, lack of new land and unfavourable weather conditions have prevented any substantial expansion in planted areas or yield improvements. The future will see a widening gap between supply and demand of oils and fats. Consumers will face the prospects of escalating prices. Low income consumers from developing countries will be the most affected as they are the least able to afford expensive soyabean or rapeseed oils. Furthermore these oils are mostly burned in the EU for biodiesel, thereby further reducing the availability for world food requirements.

Palm oil plays a critical role in supplying affordable cooking oil to most developing countries which have to depend on imported supplies. The greenies have influenced the EU to discriminate against palm oil from being used as biofuel to protect the local rapeseed industry from competition by creating trade barriers through the implementation of the RED regulation. This leaves palm oil generally available for the food sector globally. As shortages are unavoidable, it does not matter what oil is used for which sector. What is important is that the growth in supply is matched with projected demand. Since oil palm is the most capable crop to meet the increasing demand, its production should be logically increased. Because of its high yield (10 times more than soyabean oil), it will require ten times less land to supply the world's increasing needs.

The greenies are threatening the world's food security. On the one hand, they are encouraging the EU to convert inefficient rapeseed oil for biodiesel and on the other hand they are campaigning to limit the production of palm oil, fearing that it would compete with rapeseed as a raw material for the EU biodiesel industry. Inadvertently, their wish to restrict the growth of palm will accelerate the shortage of oils and fats in the world market. While current palm oil producers will benefit from escalating prices created by the greenies anti palm oil campaigns, other consumers, especially those in the developing countries, will be burdened by unaffordable cooking oil and escalating food prices. It would threaten jobs which would otherwise be created through the expansion in the oil palm sector as operations are labour intensive as compared to other oil seeds.

All these potential calamities are being created by the greenies out of their perverted and narrow views of deforestation. Without resorting to scientific evidence or even considering broad macro view of world requirements, they (the greenies) have opposed the expansion of oil palm cultivation fearing that rapeseed oil will be out-competed by palm oil for biofuel use in the EU. They use deforestation as an excuse for campaigning against palm oil without any scientific justification.

How can oil palm be blamed for deforestation in Indonesia when the country only uses 5% of its land area to plant oil palm which is one of its agricultural crops. In comparison, the UK has deforested up to 72 % of its land area for planting of agricultural crops. If the total land area under oil palm globally is compared to the total agricultural land of the world, the oil palm share is only 0.22%. Any scientist or non scientist would know that the utilization of 0.22% of the world agricultural area to plant oil palm, does not constitute massive deforestation. The fact is more than 60 and 80 % of the oil palm areas in Indonesia and Malaysia respectively were from non virgin forest areas. In addition, both countries have huge forest reserves which will cater to the need to conserve biodiversity.

How can such a small figure of land use be associated with habitat or biodiversity loss, or even be a cause of major contribution to GHG emission and global warming. I keep challenging the greenies and their fanatic followers to provide clear evidence or proof of any allegations they wish to throw at the palm oil industry. This includes allegations of indigenous people being robbed of their land. Let me correct the misinformation again. Indigenous people have been given ample land reserves by the British when they ruled the country. Their land is mostly cultivated with rubber or oil palm. Many are thankful that they have been given land to enable them to become prosperous smallholders. Obviously, we have laws in place that would address any attempt to rob people of their land.

Consumers in developing countries and also those in the developed countries must be alerted to the potential damage to the economy, food security and escalating food prices which will result from the anti palm oil campaigns orchestrated by the greenies. It is even immoral to support them in their campaign which will ultimately bring misery in the form of food shortages and high prices to the rest of the world. It is even more mind boggling to ask why the EU continues to blatantly fund the greenies to pursue their indefensible intentions to deny developing country consumers with an improved food security for the future.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-88987336451246117472010-12-16T19:50:00.000+08:002011-01-21T20:51:46.312+08:00Critical Role of Palm Oil in Enhancing Food Security
The world population is estimated at 6.8 billion today. This is predicted to increase to 8 billion people in 2030 and 8.9 billion by 2050. There will be many more mouths to feed perpetually in the future thereby increasing the demand for food.

Over 1 billion, or 15% of the world still do not have enough food on a regular basis. At the turn of this century, United Nations expounded eight Millennium Development Goals. On top of the list is the goal to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. The need to address this important issue was echoed, not too long ago, at the World Summit on Food Security that was held in Rome, Italy in November 2009. Very recently, in April 2010, World Bank launched the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program (GAFSP), which is a new multi-donor trust fund to improve food security and incomes in low-income countries through assistance to agriculture.

What is food security? According to FAO, food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) is an important agricultural crop, which yields three important sources of food, namely palm oil, palm kernel oil and palm kernel cake. An average of 3.7 tonnes of palm oil, 0.4 tonnes of palm kernel oil and 0.6 tonnes of palm kernel cake is obtainable from one hectare of land. While the first two products can be used for human consumption, such as cooking oil, margarines, shortenings, bakery fats, vanaspati, ice creams and Vitamin E, etc., palm kernel cake is used as an animal feed.

The two major palm oil producers in the world are Indonesia and Malaysia, with outputs of 21.1 and 17.6 million tonnes respectively in 2009. Together, they constitute a magnanimous 85.3% of the world's production.

Palm oil constitutes the major bulk of the world's production of oils and fats. It contributed to 27.6% share when its production in 2009 was 45.5 million tonnes. Soyabean ranked second with a production of 35.9 million tonnes or 21.8%, animal fats third with 24.4 million tonnes produced or 14.8% while rapeseed was fourth with an output of 21.5 million tonnes or 13.1%.

There are hurdles to overcome during the pursuit to achieve food security in the future. A major obstacle is the diminishing availability of already scarce arable land. While population increases, the lack of arable land may not permit this to happen as it decreases from 0.75 hectares in 1922 to 0.23 hectares in 2005 and this will decrease further to 0.19 hectares per capita in 2030. An urgent need to use this scarce resource wisely can be realized if palm oil is chosen as the preferred oil over the other major vegetable oils. Due to oil palm's high land productivity, whereby it can produce 4.1 tonnes versus 0.59, 0.42 and 0.36 tonnes of oil per hectare for rapeseed, sunflower and soyabean respectively, 7 times less land area is needed to obtain the same amount of vegetable oil if palm oil substitutes rapeseed completely.

Similarly, palm oil's substitution for sunflower and soyabean saves 10 to 11 times more land from being cleared and planted with these two crops. The extra land saved, could then be used to plant other crops or for animal husbandry.

With land scarcity, palm oil's contribution to ensure food security comes from successful research carried out in Malaysia, whereby clonal oil palm materials, capable of producing 25 to 50% more fresh fruit bunch yield are already planted in the fields. As such, higher land productivity than that obtained currently, can be expected from oil palm in the future, without resorting to felling more new land.

Vegetable oils such as palm, rapeseed, sunflower and soyabean can be used as biofuels. There is concern that there will be competition between these vegetable oils for use as food or fuel. Chatham House, United Kingdom has optimistically projected that 28% of vegetable oils or 57 million tonnes will be used for biofuels in 2015, with the balance of 72% to be used for food. In 2050, 39% of total vegetable oils will be used as fuel and the balance of 61% will be used for food. Such projected large amounts of vegetable oils dedicated for biofuel usage is unlikely to happen.

Progress has been made to convert biomass to biofuel leading to minimal quantities of vegetable oils being used as biofuels. In this respect, palm oil has a sustainability edge over soya, rapeseed and sunflower, as the oil palm, which is a perennial crop, produces large amounts of biomass all year round and these can be used for biofuel. Palm kernel is already used as a fuel source while palm briquettes can be made from empty fruit bunches. Methane from the palm oil effluent ponds is also trapped and used as biogas. Thus, besides ensuring food security, a new business of converting waste to wealth is created in the palm oil industry.

Palm oil can enhance food security by ensuring that the competition between food and fuel is minimal when its biomass are utilized for fuel and, therefore, any price hike will not be the result of such competing demands.

One of the drivers that often derail food security is the inability of the rural population, some of which live below the poverty level, to be able to afford sufficient food. The oil palm is a proven economic crop that has been used successfully to eradicate poverty due to its successful cultivation. The FELDA model in Malaysia bears testimony to such a success.

In conclusion, palm oil is the leader among the major vegetable oils that has the greatest potential to overcome food insecurity. It is capable of doing so in a very sustainable way since it requires the least land to produce the same amount of oil, thus freeing diminishing arable land for the cultivation of other crops or for animal husbandry. It is also proven that oil palm cultivation can help to eradicate rural poverty and hunger, which is one of the primary Millennium Development Goals.

Ensuring adequate supply of edible oils for the world market at affordable prices is very important to low income people of the developing world. Derailing future expansion of palm oil production through the Western Environmental NGO anti-palm oil campaigns will impact food security among the developing country population the most. It will also lead to massive deforestation as 10 times more land would be required to plant competing crops such as soyabean to meet future shortages compared to oil palm cultivation.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-54960370780636442882010-11-29T14:20:00.000+08:002011-01-21T20:49:25.164+08:00How Sustainable Production of Palm Oil Contibutes to Reduced Global Warming
At a recent forum organized by the Palm Oil Refiners Association of Malaysia (PORAM), it was revealed that there was no moral case for Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs) campaigns against palm oil. Data indicates that the agricultural land occupied by the world palm oil industry is miniscule as compared to the total land allocated to growing grains and oilseeds. This is shown in Fig 1 below where the segment for oil palm area is only 1.56 % of the total grain and oilseed area (see arrow) and it is hardly visible in the bar chart.

Figure 1 - Oil Palm VS Total Grain & Oilseed Area

Oil palm is the main agricultural crop of major palm oil producer countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia where it occupies 13% and 5% of their land area respectively. Assuming that developing countries are allowed to use part of their land area for agriculture and plant the most profitable crops to provide employment, produce food and generate income, the above figures show that there is no excessive over exploitation of forests due to planting oil palm as a cash crop. Nationally, both countries retain much higher percentages of forest as compared to developed countries as shown in Fig 2.

Figure 2 - Forest in Developed VS Developing Countries

If WENGOs claim that global warming is caused by loss of forests due to oil palm cultivation, it would be useful to know that oil palm share of world agricultural land is only 0.22 % as shown in Fig 3. The share of loss of carbon stock (deforestation) caused by oil palm compared to total global agriculture is thus assumed to be 0.22 %. This does not include the positive carbon sequestering effect of the oil palm trees. It is therefore morally unacceptable for WENGOs to discourage palm oil producing countries from practicing their share of agriculture which accounts for merely 0.22 % of world agricultural area.

Figure 3 - World Cultivated Area of Oilseeds

Even the total GHG emission of global agriculture of 17 % is considered small compared to that from the burning of fossil fuel which contributes to a high 57% of GHG emission as shown in Fig 4. The carbon foot print of the oil palm cultivation globally is therefore 0.22% x 17% of the total or 0.0374 % of global GHG emissions. This has no bearing on global warming hence making it immoral to blame oil palm as a significant contributor of global warming while facts prove otherwise.

Figure 4 - Largest Contributor to Climate Change is Fossil Fuel Usage

Many other economic activities are responsible for the vast amount of GHG emission. These activities are accepted as part of the economic growth processes needed to sustain the world economy. Efforts to reduce GHG emissions should be directed at these economic activities as they are the main cause of GHG emission. Curtailing the expansion of oil palm on the basis of its impact on global warming is therefore scientifically unjustified as the contribution is only 0.0374 % of global GHG emission.

If the loss of biodiversity is used as an argument to discourage oil palm cultivation, there is ample forest being conserved as shown in Fig 2 above. The UN Convention only requires 10 % of the country land area to be kept as forest for conserving biodiversity and Malaysia has far exceeded this by committing 50%.

Despite the lack of convincing evidence to pin down the palm oil industry against global warming or biodiversity loss, both producer countries have given full cooperation to comply with the needs of stakeholders and WENGOs to produce palm oil sustainably. They have fully embraced the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) to enable palm oil to be certified to meet sustainability principles and criteria. The Indonesians have signed an agreement with Norway to have a moratorium on deforestation while the Malaysian government has repeatedly announced its assurance of maintaining at least 50% of its land area as permanent forest. Deforestation thus appears as a non issue.

To ensure a level playing field, it is timely that a similar certification for sustainability be required for other oils produced by various countries worldwide. Otherwise, it will be a clear reflection of the oil palm industry being victimised by being asked to comply to certification needs for sustainability when no scientific justification exist to allow the world to benefit from global warming mitigation or improved biodiversity. Without premiums given to RSPO certified palm oil it becomes a big burden for oil palm farmers to bear the added cost of certification when their counterpart farmers producing soyabean or rapeseed do not have to be certified for sustainability.

Certifying the other (low yielding and land inefficient) oilseed crops for sustainability would at least contribute to a greater amount of carbon emission reduction compared to oil palm, even though the quantum of saving is still small compared to the carbon footprint of fossil fuel and other agricultural activities.

All evidence clearly shows that there is no moral ground for the WENGOs to campaign against palm oil. Unless the WENGOs can quantify and show that there are clear benefits relating to global warming or biodiversity improvements, or economic premiums for sustainable certified palm oil, then it is only a matter of time when the palm oil producers realise that they have been hoodwink by the NGOs who only impose the no deforestation condition on palm oil but don't bother to do likewise on other low yielding crops which occupy vast area of land.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-48137226425012283242010-10-13T21:26:00.000+08:002011-01-21T20:50:13.995+08:00Zoos Victoria Creating Agricultural Trade War Amongst Friendly Nations
Zoos in various states in Australia recently issued defiant statements defending their position to continue to allow NGOs to use their premises as campaign grounds to link the oil palm industry with orang utan habitat loss. Posters displayed by the NGOs on the cages housing the orang utans at the zoos were found to be offensive by a visiting Malaysian Tourism Minister as they contained insinuations which do not reflect the true situation of how orang utans have long been cared here in Malaysia.The controversy probably has increased the zoos gate collection but propagating lies about orang utans and the Malaysian oil palm industry would not be tolerated by Governments as they affect the livelihood of our oil palm farmers who are dependent on this crop as a source of income to feed their families.

Zoos Victoria and other related zoos should take note that orang utans colloquiums are organized regularly in Sabah, Malaysia. If any of the Zoo officials are interested in discussing progress and other aspects of the orang utans, they should register and participate in such colloquiums and offer their expert opinion for discussion with other renowned orang utan scientists. As reported at our earlier colloquium, orang utan conservation programmes initiated in the 1960s in Sabah have shown that the population of our orang utans has stabilised in parallel with the size of land that the state has gazetted for conservation as permanent forest reserve. The total area of the permanent forest reserve is approximately 50 % of the total area of the state, thus setting aside ample forest land for purposes of biodiversity conservation, habitat needs for wildlife and mitigation of global warming.

Orang utan is a national icon for our tourism industry especially for Sabah and Sarawak where these animals are indigenously found. It is highly unethical for zoos in Australia to use them as an icon for antagonizing the oil palm farmers. Millions of tourists come to Sabah and Sarawak to see genuine orang utans in the wild and at sanctuaries where they show up during feeding times unlike the caged enclosures in zoos in Australia where the orang utans are essentially prisoners.

We are aware that the Zoos are playing crony to the NGOs on a bigger plan to legislate for the labeling of palm oil to discourage its use in food in Australia. With the new minority government, the threat of such negative labeling to be approved will be significantly raised because of the influence of the green MPs in the coalition. Trying to block the flow of palm oil into Australia for food applications through legislative means may seem to be a small issue to the zoos which are partly funded by the state governments. However, palm oil is a major agricultural produce of Malaysia and Indonesia. Trade in palm oil is an important source of revenue for these countries and their farmers.

Australia should know the importance of promoting trade in agricultural products. Annually, Australian farmers exports RM389 million (2009)worth of live animals and meat to Malaysia in addition to the exports of huge amount of cereals. Malaysian farmers in exchange export (a lower amount) RM 306 million worth of palm oil to Australia. For many decades, governments and farmers from both countries have worked hard to establish a healthy growth in trade for their agricultural commodities, but this is now being jeopardized by campaigns carried out by Zoos Victoria and their cronies which could wreck the two-way friendly trade of agricultural products of both countries. Even if the zoos and their cronies are successful in persuading the Australian government to pass the discriminative labeling legislation proposal through parliament, and curtailing RM 306 million worth of palm oil from being freely used in food products in Australia, it is unlikely that orang utans will benefit from this exercise. Have they for a moment stopped to ponder that the oil palm farmers could very well ask their government to retaliate and Malaysia may have to look elsewhere for the supply of beef and live animals worth RM 389 million? It is also likely that Indonesian oil palm farmers will ask their government to join the retaliation and further damage could be inflicted to the beef and live animal trade as Indonesia is a bigger importer of beef from Australia as compared to Malaysia. Governments know better than to allow such a situation to occur as it affects their trade and government relations. Certainly, the Australian beef farmers Associations would not allow trade to degenerate and Zoos Victoria will be held accountable for such predicaments.

There are options to consider for the serious conservationists at Zoos Victoria . Orang utans sanctuaries are commonly found in the states of Sabah and Sarawak. Projects related to orang utan conservation can be proposed under the auspices of the Malaysian Palm Oil Wildlife Conservation Fund (MPOWCF) for consideration. All that needs to be done is to write in to MPOC with a comprehensive project proposal.

Alternatively, Zoos Victoria should focus on the conservation of the many endangered animal species in Australia because of habitat loss. For example, the Koala bears population is reducing rapidly, down to about 40,000 and the Cassowary birds are fast disappearing with a population estimated to be less than 1000 throughout Australia. The Cassowary birds would be far more interesting as a study option as compared to the orang utans. If you were to disturb their young, they can defend themselves by giving you a frontal kick which can be fatal! However, if the genes responsible for the big size of the Cassowary birds are transferred to chickens, the world could potentially have more meat supply. But if the Zoos in Australia are busy in their self-appointed role to campaign for our orang utans (which are already well cared for), and neglect to conserve their own Cassowary birds and allow them to go extinct, the world may miss a golden opportunity to improve on the poultry industry.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-89430976722158239312010-09-27T11:43:00.001+08:002010-10-04T10:01:01.822+08:00Biased Studies on Deforestation and Indirect Land Use Effect of Oil Palm
Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs) often attempt to undertake studies to demonstrate the impact of deforestation on climate change or biodiversity losses in collaboration with universities in order to establish credibility in the final reports generated. However, many of these studies are not based on valid experimental designs or sound methodology.

In studying deforestation activities, for example, the outcome may change drastically if you choose and pick specific cut-off periods and regions as these will highlight and include only selected data while oppressing other data sets. The deliberate omission of data may then lead to possible biasness and potentially wrong conclusions. If the study's intention is truly to evaluate a very specific narrow objective, then the conclusions should be restricted to the limits set initially and should not be generalized to support claims over broad and multi-causal topics like deforestation or global warming.

This blog had earlier commented on the fallacy associated when study results are generalized beyond the restricted objectives of the researchers. For e.g. , a study on biodiversity in an oil palm plantation can have 'unfavourable' out come if it is compared to biodiversity in virgin forest but it will have 'favourable' effect if compared to biodiversity of other agricultural areas. It is common for WENGOs to use such studies to conclude that biodiversity in oil palm plantations is less than that in virgin forest when the logical comparison should be with biodiversity existing in other agricultural crops as oil palm is an agricultural crop. Biodiversity in an oil palm plantation should be compared with that of forest plantation as oil palm is a forest plantation crop.

A recent study using satellite imaging analysis was quoted to have found a high rate of deforestation between 1980 and 2000 period, and the result was (wrongly) interpreted to mean that such a deforestation rate will cause global warming. Since most of the deforestation occurred in the developing countries, these countries were therefore linked to the cause of global warming. In the minds of the WENGOs, this is a clear case supporting their demands for no deforestation and an attempt to stop further development in developing countries. As a result of these type of restricted studies, ministers and government opinion leaders in the EU are convinced that deforestation is bad and therefore it must be stopped at all costs without realising that such studies are biased by the selective use of specific period when developing countries were indeed developing their agricultural industries. Conclusions derived from such studies are not considered valid by government leaders, opinion makers and NGOs in the developing countries.

For these developing countries, development is an important component of economic survival and they aspire to use the examples set in the developed countries as their model of development. They would disagree if developed countries attempt to dictate on the need to curb deforestation especially if this is without any substantial compensation. Furthermore, many realize that developed countries became developed by clearing their forests to grow industrial crops and establish other industrial activities on their (previously forested) land assets. Therefore, a deforestation moratorium has to be linked to an adequate compensation mechanism so as not to stifle the development needs of developing countries.

If deforestation and forest cover are important, the trend set by the developed countries with regard to the extent of forest cover should form the basis for future guidelines. Forest cover is a reversible process of deforestation and aforestation. A developed country can re-establish its forest area to similar high standards that it desires other developing countries to have. Therefore, a developed country that has only 10 to 20 % forest cover with no serious aforestation trend and policy has no moral right to call on developing countries with a larger percentage of forest cover to start aforestation programmes or to stop deforestation without offering adequate compensation.

The developing countries have a sovereign right to develop their land for economic growth in order to become developed nations in future. If the period on which the deforestation study is undertaken is extended back by 100 or 200 years, then it will be obvious that deforestation mainly took place in the developed countries and they would be implicated as the main contributor of global warming through massive cumulative deforestation. Selective studies designed to omit consideration of past emissions was cleverly deployed to show that the USA and EU emit less carbon as compared to developing countries as only present level of deforestation was compared. They do not include the massive deforestation and emission of CO2 in the past which have accumulated in the atmosphere, causing global temperature to increase gradually over the last 100 years.

The other real major flaw in the WENGOs' argument is to ignore the massive contribution (more than 80%) of the fossil fuel sector toward global CO2 emission and global warming. Most of the emission during the last 200 years was from fossil fuel emission of industrial activities in developed countries. Deforestation which occurred mostly in developed countries during this period was estimated to have contributed about 17 % of the emission and global warming effect.

There was no analysis to show conclusively that the 11 million hectares of oil palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia representing 0.1% of global agricultural areas have contributed to significant global rise in temperature even if it is assumed that these oil palm areas were originally forested land. Logically that 0.1 % of world agricultural land used for growing oil palm would not show any significant effect on global warming compared to the use of fossil fuel and the past deforestation in developed countries, as 0.1 % is far too small to have any significant effect. Even tripling the oil palm planted area to 0.3% of world agricultural land would not have any significant effect on global warming.

On the other hand, should oil palm plantations not be expanded, this will cause 10 times more forest land to be converted for growing soyabean crop to meet future world shortages in oils and fats supply as argued in my previous article. Because of the potential deforestation avoidance effects of palm oil by a factor of 10 times, it would clearly imply that the more palm oil produced to meet world shortages, much more forest areas will be saved from being cleared to plant lower yielding oilseed crops. Deforestation studies which ignore these effects will grossly underestimate the global warming mitigation effects of palm oil and researchers conducting such biased studies will do injustice by masking the excellent potential capacity of the oil palm to mitigate global warming.

The biased results of studies on deforestation have contributed to the grave mistake of focusing world attention on deforestation in developing countries while ignoring the real culprit: the huge emission of CO2 contributed by the fossil fuel sector. It is important that the focus should be to reduce fossil fuel use in the developed countries.

The above argument explains the suspicion by developing countries that WENGOs are conducting a bogus campaign against the oil palm industry. The motivation must be to divert attention away from the real culprit who contributes to global warming : the fossil fuel sector which is allowed to continue to expand as it is vital for developed countries economic performance. Another motive is to protect their indigenous oilseed sectors, which are not sustainably produced, from competition coming from cheaper and more efficiently produced palm oil.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-91539677968741927652010-08-25T11:45:00.000+08:002010-09-29T11:46:12.415+08:00Deforestation Moratorium and Future Shortages of Food Supply Will Require 10 Times More Forest Conversion
The world population of over 6 billion is increasing by 70 to 80 million people annually. Food supply needs to expand to keep up with the additional demand. Land to grow food crops is getting scarce. By 2020, arable land in the world is projected to decrease to less than 1 acre per capita which is hardly sufficient considering the same land is needed for producing enough grains, vegetables, fruits, meat, milk and oils and fats to feed a single person and his animals for a year. In terms of land utilization, priority will of course be given to the production of cereals and grains as these are staples in most countries and this will be followed closely by oils and fats production.

In the oils and fats sector, global demand is increasing at a rate of 5 to 6 million tonnes per year on average against a total consumption of 165 million tonnes annually. To produce an additional 5 million tonnes of vegetable oils and fats, 10 million hectares of land will be required to plant soyabean, as compared to 1 million hectares if oil palm is the choice. Cereals and grains such as rice, wheat and corn are also experiencing shortages due to population pressure and increasing affluence where more demand for meat will mean more intensive production of grains as feed for cattle etc. The world is facing an enormous challenge. It needs to have 10 million hectares of new land created every year to supply the additional 5 million tonnes of soyabean oil, considering additional land is also needed for grain and cereal production. The annual expansion of oilseed area if planted with soyabean is almost equivalent to the combined total oil palm area of Malaysia and Indonesia. Another 10 million hectares will be needed the following year and similarly, in subsequent years to maintain an additional 5 million tonnes of oils and fats supply annually. BUT if oil palm were to supply the annual increase, the land expansion is more modest, a mere 1 million hectares per year.

It is important to note that most countries including the EU are already net importers of oils and fats. For these countries the chronic shortages will worsen in future because of limited land availability locally for growing oil seed crops. As shown in the chart 1 below, only three countries are significant net exporters of oils and fats, i.e. Malaysia, Indonesia and Argentina. Malaysia and Indonesia which export mainly palm oil, account for 80 % of world net export availability for oils and fats. These countries have announced limitations of available land for oil palm cultivation because of the need to conserve forests. Malaysia has long pledged to keep a minimum of 50 % of its land as permanent forest and that remains till today. Indonesia has recently declared a moratorium on deforestation after a US$ 1 billion compensation agreement with Norway.

(Chart 1)

The challenge facing the future availability of oils and fats is in the need to ensure adequate supply to meet at least the requirements of the net importing countries. As a result of their chronic non self-sufficiency, their import demand is growing. As shown in chart 2, the net import of oils and fats has doubled since 9 years ago from 25 million tonnes to an estimated 50 million tonnes in 2009.Yet, the two largest net exporting countries, accounting for 80 % of world net exports of oils and fats are imposing a limit to future production expansion because of the need to conserve forest.

( Chart 2)

Many potential scenarios can be postulated to prevail in the coming years regarding such future shortages as follows:-

Firstly, countries that are not bound by a moratorium on deforestation will continue to deforest to produce the additional oils and fats needed to feed the increasing world population. As these countries will produce annual oil crops such as soyabean rather than palm oil, the new land required will be 10 folds larger due to its low yield as compared to the higher yielding oil palm. If most of these are forest areas, the deforestation rate will be accelerated by a factor of ten. The deforestation moratorium in Indonesia and Malaysia will translate into an accelerated deforestation which will occur ten times faster in other countries. This will be most profound in the net importer countries as they will have no alternative but to put their own forest areas to work to produce the oil needed to feed their population. (African and Latin American tropical countries could not cultivate oil palm on a larger scale because of the threat of indigenous diseases that could devastate their oil palm plantations).

Secondly, shortages will cause prices of oils and fats to rise. While, producers will try to improve yield to produce more oils and fats from existing land area, this potential has been explored in recent years and future additional yield improvement is limited. Consumers will have to reduce consumption because of high prices in order to reduce demand to match smaller volumes of supply. More than 75% of the net export of oils and fats is destined for developing countries. Future supply shortages and high prices of essential commodities such as oils and fats will mostly impact developing countries. Low income earning population in the developing countries will face the prospects of having inadequate access to oils and fats supply leading to major segments of the population being exposed to mal-nutrition.

Future planning to address the impending shortages should be initiated in the agenda of international bodies like the FAO and not dictated by agendas of the Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs). Their claim of success in their anti-palm oil campaigns could be premature. When the developing countries are confronted with acute shortages of oils and fats in 10 years time, it will be too late to restart the cultivation of oil palm as the trees take 3 years to mature. By curtailing the continuing expansion of the oil palm industry, through the WENGOs bogus anti-palm oil campaigns, it is the developing countries which will face shortages of edible oils and fats supply in the near future. Furthermore, instead of preventing deforestation, much more deforestation will be carried out by other countries planting inefficient annual crops such as soyabean to meet their local demand. Instead of reducing carbon emissions, the large scale planting of soyabean will cause more deforestation and more CO2 emissions as compared to the situation if oil palm cultivation is allowed its natural expansion to supply the needs of net importing countries.

Bogus studies by the WENGOs have also depicted exaggerated emissions of carbon dioxide when peat land is developed for oil palm cultivation. A recent review (See JOPE, 2010, at http://www.jope.com.my) actually showed that degraded peat land naturally emits much more CO2 equivalent than if the peat area is planted with oil palm. In other words, oil palm planted on degraded peat land will reduce carbon emission compared with the natural emission of the degraded peat forest. Bogus WENGO campaigns based on non-scientific studies will deter expansion of legitimate and logical use of peat land for oil palm cultivation which would otherwise ease shortages of supply for net importing countries and would in future save more forests from being converted into producing oil seed crops in those countries.

Similarly, bogus calculation of default carbon emission figures on palm oil in the proposed EU Renewable Energy Directive(RED) will also force the EU to use high carbon foot print raw materials such as rape seed and soya oil for their biofuel programme therefore increasing carbon emission as compared to a situation if palm oil were allowed to be freely used for biofuel in Europe where carbon savings will occur. Already bogus arguments have been proposed that despite palm oil not meeting the 35% threshold figure of emission saving, (because of fictitious default value of carbon emission saving of 19 % assigned to the crop ), it will continue to be allowed for use in biofuel in the EU but will not be given tax exemptions. Such arguments make no business sense at all as no one would use palm oil under punitive tax discrimination.

Highly disputable land-use change calculations are already being designed to ignore the effect of deforestation avoidance whenever net importing countries import land-efficient palm oil to replace soyabean or rapeseed oil as raw material for food or fuel. The outcomes are equally predictable. Not only will carbon emissions be increased multifold, but the shortages of supply will force prices to rise which will severely hamper consumers in developing countries to have access to affordable oils and fats.

When shortages hit the market, palm oil net exporters such as Indonesia and Malaysia will be the beneficiary of high prices for their commodities. The WENGOs will probably deny any responsibility in accelerating the shortages. They would also probably deny their role in accelerating deforestation that will contribute to a faster rate of global warming. While orang utans will continue to survive in the permanent forests of Malaysia and Indonesia as they have been well looked after for decades by authorities in these countries despite claims by WENGOs that these animals will become extinct by 2012, millions of children and adults in developing countries will suffer malnutrition from low availability of oils and fats as a result of the bogus WENGOs anti-palm oil campaigns. Will the WENGOs be answerable for their suffering?
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-28936998857581859092010-07-13T12:07:00.000+08:002010-07-13T12:08:38.045+08:00How WENGOs Can Contribute to a Better World?
The Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs) are well known for their ruthlessness: they are deeply ideological, almost like religious fanatics in some cases. They are also relentless, well funded and cunning. In many instances they have no regard for facts. They shape their arguments on the basis of their effectiveness irrespective of facts, and their war aim is clear, to destroy your industry if you are the intended target.

This is the challenge faced by the oil palm industry which has been targeted by the WENGOs. Their aim is to destroy the oil palm industry starting with a day at a time, followed relentlessly by weeks, months and years of negative campaigns. For example the ruthless campaign by Zoo Victoria against the palm oil industry was based on mere exaggeration rather than on facts. A recent report by the Australian Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) finds that 10 out of 12 facts used by Zoo Victoria in its anti-palm oil campaign are either false or cannot be substantiated.The Zoo campaigner Ms Lowry later admitted working closely with the WWF.

Oil palm happens to be an agricultural crop of developing countries where farmers who were plagued by poverty may now have an opportunity to earn a decent living of up to US$ 20 per day compared to US $2 before they cultivated oil palm trees on the land. These farmers are crying for fair trade to prevail especially in the EU, USA and Australia where WENGOs campaigns have smeared the good image of their agricultural produce leading to new barriers being imposed to imports of palm oil.

In some instances the anti-palm oil campaigns have infiltrated policy makers in formulating regulations which are essentially trade barriers disguised as sustainability issues. The EU Renewable Energy Directives (RED), with their highly controversial system of default figures assigned especially to foreign raw materials like palm oil for use as biofuel is a clear example of a discriminatory trade barrier. No sound minded scientists will be able to justify assigning a pathetic low carbon emission saving figure of 19 % for palm oil, but it can happen in the EU as found in the RED regulations as a result of the influence of the WENGOs in policy making circles.

Similarly, the infiltration of WENGOs ideology in the World Bank has led to a departure of its policy which no longer promotes growth in developing countries when oil palm cultivation is involved. But WENGOs can avoid the path of destruction of developing countries agricultural industry and still contribute to a better world if their campaigns to save forest and mitigate green house gas (GHG) emissions are linked to actual sectors and countries that are truly involved in deforestation or those rampantly contributing to GHG emissions.

One area of potential progress is to focus on deforestation taking place in developed countries. I have pointed out this previously citing Canada as an example and since then some progress was observed. Recently, Canada made peace with the WENGOs by signing a moratorium on logging to reduce deforestation. This is a good example for other developed countries to follow. Deforestation moratorium alone is not sufficient. In order to increase forest cover, reforestation campaigns should be launched especially in the EU where forests have been decimated to less than 20 % of total area in many countries. They should follow the good example of Malaysia where forest cover is more than 50 % of the total country's area. Such re-establishment of forest cover will help mitigate global warming and provide habitats for animals.

Present focus by the WENGOs to restrict oil palm cultivation expansion in order to conserve forests is likely to stifle an important economic activity of developing countries. Other more feasible options should be considered. For example, deforestation in developing countries and coal mining in developed countries share common characteristics in that both are economic sectors which contribute to emission of CO2. If the WENGOs were to focus solely on no deforestation by preventing expansion of oil palm plantation in developing countries and yet allow the continuation and expansion of coal mining in developed countries, the emission of CO2 will continue undiminished.

Therefore, developed countries will continue to enjoy economic activities with substantial CO2 emission while poor farmers in developing countries are unfairly asked to make sacrifices and denied further access to an economic activity in order to save emission of CO2.

In reality, replanting of degraded forest land with oil palm is the most productive and useful thing to do, as it is the best way to reforest an area, sequester carbon and contribute to economic development. On the other hand, coal mining is a one way process of releasing locked carbon to the atmosphere causing global warming. The developing countries are also the least able to make the sacrifice to reduce their economic activity compared to developed countries.

This is where the WENGOs can re-align their campaigns by focusing on what developed countries could do in order to make a more meaningful contribution to their objective of reducing global CO2 emission and not just focus on stifling the growth of agricultural commodities of developing countries such as palm oil which will harm the income potential of the poor farmers who are only trying to earn a decent living. These oil palm farmers have a right to have a better life just like the WENGOs and they should be given a chance to improve their agricultural practices while facing the harsh realities of poverty which is common in developing countries. They are working with local NGOs to adopt the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) practices which takes time, and they need support in improving their sustainability practices instead of harassment by some WENGOs from far away lands on how best to cultivate their crops.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-24066027984031429352010-05-29T12:27:00.000+08:002010-06-07T12:31:33.339+08:00Sustainability: New Market for Certified Sustainable Oils and Fats?Confusion reigns over certified and uncertified oils

In recent years, the Western Environmental NGOs (WENGOs) together with producers and buyers of palm oil have attempted to promote the development and market for certified sustainable oils and fats products in addition to existing non-certified products. This has resulted in two types of market for oils and fats: the certified sustainable oil market and the market for normal oils that are not certified. The most desirable and ideal market is of course one where the oils and fats products are proven to be sustainably produced. The proof is via a certification and auditing process where the oils or fats which are found to comply with a set of sustainability principles and criteria will be issued certificates attesting to their sustainable production and processing. These products are supposed to be marketed at a premium to meet the needs of sophisticated markets especially in the EU. In the case of palm oil, such products are referred to as Certified Sustainable Palm Oil in general or Certified RSPO palm oil (CSPO) if the RSPO system is used as the basis for auditing and certification. In contrast, the main market is still mostly for non-certified normal palm oil. Such products cannot be marketed as sustainable as the WENGOs will protest that there is no proof of sustainability. Neither can it be labeled as unsustainable palm oil as there is no proof for that either.Unfortunately, Certified RSPO palm oil has received limited acceptance thus far. The available capacity in Malaysia of about 1 million tonnes of CSPO palm oil has not been fully taken up. Only 30 % of the potentially available RSPO palm oil has been exported to the EU. The main excuse is the lack of willingness of the importers to pay a premium to offset the initial cost of certification. To make matters worse, some of the WENGOs are casting doubts on the ability of RSPO members to supply sustainable palm oil.

Biofuel requires inclusion of carbon emission saving parameters

With the world turning its focus onto biodiesel, the scope for sustainability certification is extended to include carbon emission parameters of the biofuel. RSPO was initially designed to serve the food industry, and carbon emission parameters were not included into the assessment system. Authorities for biofuel in the EU and USA want to have their own certification schemes for sustainable raw materials for renewable fuel. The RSPO scheme is deemed insufficient to meet their requirements unless carbon emissions saving figures are included. The RSPO nevertheless is attempting to overcome this deficiency.

The majority (99 %) of palm oil buyers are however, comfortable with the traditional market where palm oil has been traded without the need for a certification system just as other competing oils and fats are also marketed without any form of certification schemes. As other oils and fats are not able to offer certified sustainable products for the market and palm oil is largely also available in the non-certified form, there is some resistance and confusion to the introduction and acceptance of CSPO.

Another problem is the proliferation of potential new certification schemes to be introduced by Germany, the EU and the USA that form part of their national regulations to cater to the biofuel development. These need to be harmonized into an international standard as it is impossible for exporters of palm oil to comply with too many certification schemes. Without harmonization of certification systems, palm oil is not able to fully participate in the biofuel industry in Germany and USA and the certification schemes have essentially become effective trade barriers barring the entry of imported palm oil. In comparison, local raw materials are likely to be exempted from these certification schemes as local farmers are against such additional burden added to their production process.

WENGOs wrongly targeting palm oil

The WENGOs are exploiting the confusion by continuing to spread misinformation to tarnish the image of palm oil. Zoos in Australia have been misled by Friends of Earth (FOE) Australia into believing that orang utans are affected by deforestation due to oil palm plantations. Such allegations are unfounded. As discussed in this blog, orang utan population in Malaysia has stabilized because the country has stabilized its permanent forest area. Pseudo scientists operating some of the Australian Zoos should instead focus on campaigning for the critically low population of the Koala bears in their country. According to the Australian Koala Foundation, the population of Koalas has shrunk from 400,000 to 44,000 in the wild. Loss of habitat is the main reason, and forests are lost to agriculture. Australia has 23 times more land area than Malaysia, but its Koala bear population is only 4 times more than the number of orang utans in Malaysia (of about 11,000). The Australian Zoos are campaigning to help protect the already well protected orang utans in Malaysia while they are neglecting the fate of fast diminishing Koalas in their own country. They claim that Koalas can easily reproduce (to pacify the unaware public) but with declining habitat areas due to frequent fires and conversion to other uses, population growth of the Koalas will continue to decline as reported by the Australian Koala Foundation.

The misguided Zoo authorities in Australia have even lobbied their parliament to pass a law to label palm oil as the cause of orang utan population decline. Unfortunately they have not been fair in not asking their cattle and lamb products to be labeled as causing the decline and possible extinction of Koala bears and aborigines population in their country. It is a fact that cattle emit far more methane gas which cause global warming compared to oil palm plantations in Malaysia. The fact relating to historical land grabs that displaced and impoverished the aborigines in Australia should not be swept under the carpet but should be used to justify the labeling of Australian beef products. Current beef products from Australia are deceptively labeled without declaring the severe damage to global warming caused by methane from cattle, loss of habitat of Koala bears and historical land grabbing of aborigines' land by beef farmers.

Similar arguments are forwarded by WENGOs in the UK who wrongly blamed oil palm cultivation in Malaysia as a cause of global warming. In truth, oil palm plantations behave like forest plantation by sequestering CO2. Inability to evaluate the scientific facts led to the WENGOs overlooking devastating emitters such as coal mines in their countries in preference for wrongly blaming oil palm plantations in developing countries for emission of CO2 as the cause of global warming. This has led to unjustified demand by many followers of the WENGOs for a stop to deforestation for agricultural development in developing countries.

Wrong assumptions and false allegations can cause devastating consequences especially when actions are taken by powerful developed countries such as the EU, USA and Australia against the interests of poor developing countries. Trade barriers are imposed without considering the big picture of costs and benefits. Malaysia was a net GHG sequestering country up to the year 2005, and deforestation for agricultural development is not an issue, because to a certain limit, deforestation is necessary as part of the sovereign right in the developing process for any newly independent developing country. Yet, a lot of negative campaigning is directed at palm oil on the false allegation that it contributes to global warming when the true fact is otherwise. Oil palm helps mitigate global warming together with the large permanent forest reserves which also provide for habitat need for wildlife such as the orang utans.

WENGOs like Greenpeace should start changing its focus and campaign to shut all the coal mines in its mother country, the UK, where CO2 emission from coal burning is several times more devastating in causing global warming compared to cultivation of oil palm in developing countries. Coal should be replaced with other fuels of lower carbon footprint. The 18 million tonnes of coal mined in the UK annually emits CO2 equivalent to the deforestation of 380,000 hectares of tropical rainforest. In addition, 40 million tonnes of imported coal will further emit CO2 equivalent to another 800,000 hectares equivalent of rain forest deforestation. The total 1,180,000 hectares per annum rainforest deforestation equivalent is about 10 times the annual area of past expansion of oil palm cultivation in Malaysia. While coal mines have a one directional release of CO2 to the atmosphere, oil palm planting sequesters CO2 to compensate for the CO2 released by initial deforestation. Blaming oil palm plantations (a source of livelihood in developing countries) as a cause of CO2 emission while ignoring more devastating sources of CO2 emission is essentially condoning gross wrongdoing in their own countries while unfairly opposing the development of needed legitimate agricultural sectors of developing countries. If global warming is the main concern of the WENGOs, they do not need to look far to find the solution. Campaigning to shut their coal mines, and boycotting the use of coal in their countries will yield far more CO2 reduction and will have least damage to the livelihood of people in developing countries as compared to attacking the oil palm industry.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-56570479311480815832010-04-08T20:49:00.001+08:002010-04-10T20:56:30.437+08:00Senseless and Immoral Attacks on Palm Oil by NGOsEU funding anti palm oil campaigns

A recent report revealed that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of environmental NGOs. These NGOS are now viciously campaigning against palm oil imports into the EU especially for biofuels. We regard this as a senseless and immoral attack on exported commodities such as palm oil produced by developing countries. Such funding implicates the EU for creating barriers to trade for agricultural products from developing countries. Unlike the EU, developing countries do not have access to financial resources to fight such government funded vicious campaigns. The eventual outcome will be untold miseries where poor farmers in developing countries lose their source of income as their export commodities are unable to enter the EU market. Such covert protectionism by rich countries directed at products of developing countries is against the spirit of fostering international trade as promoted by WTO.

Lessons from Copenhagen

There is little attempt at hiding the intention of the EU to limit the growth of developing countries by forcing them to follow the path of a low carbon economy as this was the main agenda proposed at the Copenhagen Climate Change meeting in December last year. The latest report of the UK Environment Ministry regarding Post Copenhagen clearly spells out this intention. Part of the strategy or ploy was to pressure developing countries to stop converting forests into agricultural areas as deforestation is alleged to emit green house gases (GHG) . The outright rejection by developing countries against any effort to restrict their future growth as clearly conveyed at the Copenhagen meeting should be a lesson to the anti-palm oil NGOs that their governments would not be successful in forcing the developing countries from continuing to develop their economy. The lesson learnt from Copenhagen is that no amount of pressure or promise of compensation will make the developing countries surrender their rights to future development. When promises of compensation in the tune of billions of dollars were coming from countries that are themselves in severe debts and deficits, it would be suicidal for developing countries to agree to any attempt to curtail their economic growth on the basis of needing to reduce carbon emission. If carbon emission from deforestation is an issue, what about carbon emission from coal mining and fossil fuels? In all fairness, developing countries often wonder why environmental NGOs in the EU are busy scrutinizing oil palm plantations when their focus should be to campaign against much more highly polluting industries such as coal mines in the UK, Germany and Poland. These mines are the cause of global warming and environmental disasters.

Senseless attacks on palm oil will only hurt poor farmers in developing countries BUT - stopping local coal mining will certainly mitigate carbon emission.

It is a senseless act on the part of the EU and DG Environment to fund NGOs to campaign against the growth of the palm oil industry using the guise of the need to reduce GHG emissions and preserving biodiversity. Why stop oil palm cultivation when most of such activities are legitimate creation of agricultural land from unproductive degraded forests which have been logged many times in the last 50 years. NGOs admit to the fact that some 25 million hectares of forests have been deforested in Indonesia over the last 25 years. As the total area of oil palm cultivation is only around 7 million hectares, oil palm cultivation cannot be the cause of deforestation. In fact, oil palm does a great deal of justice to the environment by rehabilitating degraded forest into an equivalent of a plantation forest that brings immense benefits including rebuilding its carbon stock or sequestering carbon, providing income to farmers and food and fuel to the world. Furthermore, the land concerned has contributed to its share of carbon sequestration because the timber removed over the last 50 years is preserved and reused in developed countries as door and window frames, beams and roof trusses. These timber products act as perpetual carbon storage and only release CO2 when they are discarded or the houses are burned occasionally.

Replanting tropical degraded land with oil palm helps to continue the carbon sequestering cycle into the future. If the UK NGOs are targeting to reduce carbon emission from such deforestation, it clearly is a case of a misdirected campaign. It would be far better to focus locally where activities like coal mining are blatantly contributing to the release of carbon stored from deep below ground. The annual production of 18 million tonnes of coal in the UK would emit more than 52 million tonnes of CO2. Greenpeace should speak out as they do for tropical forest that such reserve of carbon stock should better be left un-mined. It is far more absurd that some attempts are being proposed to pump back CO2 into underground storage as a means for artificial carbon sequestration. Pumping CO2 under high pressure for such storage purposes will cause even more carbon emission. Compared to the 18 million tonnes of palm oil annually produced in Malaysia which emits no net CO2 since the CO2 is absorbed from the atmosphere during oil synthesis in the plant, it is clearly more logical to promote palm oil even as biofuel. If it is a toss up between stopping oil palm planting on degraded forest land in Sarawak or Indonesia and closing coal mines in the UK, it is more logical to campaign for the latter as the UK would have the technology and capacity to turn to alternative nuclear fuel which has little carbon foot-print.

The money promised at the Copenhagen meeting by the UK to fund forest conservation in developing countries should instead be used to compensate local coal miners when their mines are closed. Those extreme NGOs who campaign for excluding palm oil in food products should rethink their strategy. Shouldn't the campaign be directed at closing coal mines in the UK as the mines will never be certified sustainable and coal is better stored where it exists deep underground and not burnt as fuel to cause global warming. Closing coal mines in the UK is more acceptable as miners who are out of job can obtain social benefits whereas stopping poor farmers from producing palm oil will cause starvation and related miseries. For this reason, most of our local environmental NGOs are supportive of sustainable expansion of the oil palm industry, provided that the benefits are distributed equitably to local communities where the plantations are established. If the local NGOs in Malaysia and Indonesia are not against oil palm cultivation , why then are foreign NGOs taking an anti-palm oil stance?

Earning the right to trade

It is immoral to block the import and use of palm oil in the EU . There is certainly no justification to do so. If palm oil is a legitimate agricultural produce and countries such as Malaysia have provided sufficient amount of forest reserves for purposes of conserving biodiversity, habitats of the orang utans and mitigating global warming, then palm oil has earned its right to trade. How can palm oil be rejected when it was the British who established major oil palm plantations in Malaysia just as they later established rapeseed farms at home in the last few decades. Why should these plantations be required to be certified sustainable when rapeseed, soyabean or olive oil produced in the developed countries are given preferential treatment even though they are not sustainably produced.

Massive deforestation is not due to oil palm cultivation

Recent campaigns for e.g. against Kit-Kat makes a mockery of the sensibility and rationality in handling an issue. A multi-ingredient raw material usage product like Kit -Kat will not be able to ensure that all the ingredients used are from certified sustainable sources. Singling out palm oil for it to be sustainable is unfair and punitive to the palm oil trade. If palm oil as an ingredient in a food product is needed to be certified sustainable, why are the other ingredients not required to do so.? The use of rapeseed or soyabean oil or sugar in such products leads to far more deforestation and global warming. In the last twenty years soya bean planting in Argentina, Brazil and the USA and rapeseed planting in Canada and Europe involved at least 60 million hectares of land expansion, most of which caused massive deforestation. The world planting of oil palm over the last 100 years has only amounted to less than 15 million hectares and the countries involved still have generous amount of permanent forest left for maintaining biodiversity and sequestering CO2.

Losers and winners

Eventually trade restrictions against palm oil into Europe will cause the EU to develop a distorted biofuel policy that will promote the least sustainable and most expensive fuels such as local rapeseed and soyabean oils. The extra cost for such a fiasco will have to be borne by the EU public. In the mean time, environmentally friendly fuel such as palm oil will be denied its opportunity to contribute its known environmental benefits in mitigating global warming, while farmers in developing countries are penalised undeservingly by the trade barriers established by the EU and their sponsored environmental NGOs.Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-14600992440146665772010-02-21T09:01:00.001+08:002010-04-11T00:37:47.609+08:00Palm oil: A Crop of Peace & ProsperityIn an earlier article, I highlighted the fact that science is on the side of palm oil - be it in the area of nutrition, biofuel or global warming. There is enough scientific evidence to defend palm oil's status as a nutritious food oil. Recently a meta analysis research publication confirmed that saturates (palm oil is 50 % saturated) are not associated with Conorary Heart Diseases (CHD), stroke or heart attacks.

What about allegations linking palm oil to deforestation?

There is an earlier definition by a FAO experts meeting (2005) that qualifies oil palm as a forest plantation. Forest plantation is defined as "forest stand in which trees have been established by planting or/and deliberate seeding or coppicing with either native species or non-native species that meet all the following criteria, namely, one or two or few species, even-aged and regular spacing."

Recently, the anti- palm oil NGOs voiced their frustration at a leaked EU document that recognizes oil palm as a forest plantation. It is highly likely that any new definition created, will qualify oil palm to be regarded as a forest plantation. NGOs are becoming desperate in their criticism as they refuse to face the facts and remain detached from reality. Unfounded allegations will only mean that it will be more difficult for them to defend their statements. For e.g. a reporter from the BBC was quoted as saying that Sarawak has only 3 % pristine forest left. In reality, Sarawak has more than 60% of its land as permanent forest reserve!. Since most of the outrageous statements are coming from the UK and Australia, there must be something wrong with their perception of palm oil. I will be meeting the British High Commissioner soon to enquire why their NGOs do not use good science in persuing their agenda and criticisms.

There were mixed responses from readers whenever positive claims were made on palm oil. The skeptics found it hard to believe that palm oil is an excellent product. Some would go for the usual character assassination of me to highlight their viewpoint. Mostly, it is due to lack of awareness that prompts readers to be influenced into an anti-palm oil stance. There are, on the other hand, numerous supporters who want me to continue explaining to the stakeholders the issues confronting the Malaysian palm oil industry.

Latest published paper confirms saturated fats are not associated with coronary heart diseases (CHD), stroke, or heart attacks

I have come a long way to be able to share my point of view on palm oil without fear or favour. I was with the then Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia (PORIM) and the present Malaysian Palm Oil Board(MPOB) for 27 years, spending half of that time spearheading the organsiation as the Director General and helping to lead and commission research projects on all aspects of the palm oil industry. This included some 160 nutritional research studies in various centers of excellence in major consuming countries of the world. After following the developments of nutritional research on palm oil and other oils and fats, reading many research papers and listening to many conferences on the subject, I am not surprised to read the latest findings in the paper which concludes that saturated fats are not found to be associated with increased risks of CHD, stroke or heart attack.

Many nutritional research projects on the comparative effects of palm oil had to be carried out in the past to verify a finding pointed out to us by an expert from the Food and Drug Authority(FDA) in the USA that "although palm oil has about 50 % saturated fatty acids in its composition, it does not behave like a saturated fat in its cholesterol raising effects" based on a publication in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) in July, 1987. An explanation for this finding was discovered after numerous studies , namely that in the presence of a few percent of essential fatty acids( polyunsaturated fatty acids ), palm oil is not cholesterol raising in its effects.
In practice, most diets would have a few percent of these essential fatty acids (EFAs) present as they are naturally found in a variety of food sources including seeds and grains, and thus palm oil will perform well in most situations where the needed EFAs are likely to be present.

We have gone beyond the expectations of our stakeholders in pursuing the opportunity for commercialising the good nutritional attributes of palm oil. We knew from our research that palm oil helps to raise the good HDL cholesterol. We also know from previous studies that in the presence of soft oils (i.e. sufficient EFAs) palm oil will not raise cholesterol levels. Combining the two findings enables a new formulation to be tested in a clinical trial in the USA where a ratio of 50% palm oil and soft oils or similar blends were found to improve the good HDL to bad LDL cholesterol ratio in the participants. The result was patented and approval of FDA was obtained to allow such fat blend products formulated according to this finding to be labeled with the cholesterol ratio improvement claim. When the market was hit by the trans-fatty acids ban due to its adverse effect on cholesterol, palm oil became the preferred choice for use especially in solid fat products in the USA.

While allegations are made to smear palm oil as unhealthy, these are mere generalisations on the unhealthy role of saturated fatty acids. Palm oil is linked to it because it is regarded as a saturated fat. There were no references made to actual nutritional studies on any detrimental effects of palm oil in the diet. Now that a new published study totally refutes any association of saturated fats with CHD or stroke, it will be hard for opponents of palm oil to carry on smearing it as unhealthy because of its saturated fats content. On the other hand, palm oil has the endorsement of the FDA to show that its blend improves cholesterol ratio of the subjects.

Palm oil provides functionality which is not possible with liquid soft oils

For solid fat products, palm oil is able to deliver the functionality needed to make shortenings for baking breads and cakes or in the production of margarine. Liquid oils such as soyabean and rapeseed oils are unable to produce solid shortenings unless they are hydrogenated which would either turn them into fully saturated fats or would have the health harming trans fatty acids created through the required partial hydrogenation process. Palm oil thus saves the food industry from collapsing due to the lack of fats supply at affordable prices. In addition, the superior (nutritional) claim by palm oil blends enables the market to use palm oil without any guilt in case the past negative stigma brought by the anti-palm oil campaigns of the 1980s influences consumers. With a beneficial nutritional claim and excellent functionality, palm oil is without rivals in the market place. This is consolidated by its competitive price, through discounts to other oils and fats because palm oil is 10 times higher yielding as compared to other oils. It is rather unethical for opponents of palm oil to now discourage its widespread consumption in food because this would mean denying consumers the benefits of a nutritionally and functionally proven product that is also competitively priced.

Palm oil qualifies as both agricultural and forest plantation

The versatility of palm oil is always overwhelming to new comers. Palm oil is only 10 % of the output biomass generated by the oil palm plantations on a dry weight basis. The usable residual biomass fiber produced per hectare per year on an oil palm plantation is often much more than that of planted or natural forests. Some oil palm plantations are already extracting lumber from the oil palm trunks; the trunks can also be used to produce veneer for making plywood, while fiber from the fronds, trunks or empty bunches are increasingly being used to make medium density fiber board's (MDF). From the perspective of fiber production and utilisation, the oil palm plantation is no different from other forest plantations.

The EU definition of forest plantations as an area that is covered with continuous canopy of trees that can grow to several meters will certainly be fulfilled by an oil palm plantation. It is not difficult to figure out why the oil palm plantation is often a better forest plantation than other forest systems. For a start, the oil palm is a forest species commonly found in the jungles of tropical Africa and by planting the oil palm in a triangular system to maximise the absorption of sunlight in a plantation, canopy cover is maximised. The oil palm happens to be a prolific synthesis of biomass and by planting the population of elite palm trees in an area, the oil palms above average performance will be better than other forest systems where trees are a mixture of elite and non elite performers as most are not prolific synthesis of biomass. While waiting for the palm trunks to mature in a 25 year period like other forest species, fiber products are obtainable continuously throughout the year from the empty fruit bunches and fronds. Such a high productivity of useable biomass cannot be matched by most forest systems.

Oil palm – first an agricultural crop and then a forest plantation

Developing countries like Malaysia have their sovereign right to dedicate part of their land for agricultural purposes. It happens that oil palm can grow well in Malaysia and 66 % of the agricultural land ( or 13 % of the country's area) is grown with oil palm. For those concerned with biodiversity preservation, Malaysia has repeatedly announced the setting aside of at least 50% of the country 's land area as permanent forests. International agreements only require the setting aside of 10% of a country's area for purposes of biodiversity conservation. The oil palm cannot be accused of causing deforestation in Malaysia when a large area of forests is being preserved permanently. For every hectare of oil palm, the country preserves four hectares of permanent forest, which is a very healthy balance in terms of land use policy. Even the habitats of the orang utans are preserved as the States of Sabah and Sarawak maintain about 50% or more of their land area under permanent forest. This area should be more than sufficient for the orang utans considering that humans too require land to plant agricultural crops to meet their food requirements. The fact that many orang utans like to foray into the agricultural areas looking for food is a positive contribution of our agricultural crops, which implies that the oil palm not only provides food for the world population but also for the orang utans, birds, squirrels, monkeys and other animals. An important contribution of palm oil is its ability to supply a vital food component (fat or oil) to billions of people around the world while providing millions of jobs, and remunerative income to small farmers and plantation workers in the palm oil producing countries. I was informed recently that in the southern Philippines, oil palm is called the crop of "peace and prosperity" because with a steady source of income from the sales of palm oil, farmers are able to live in peace in a region that was historically plagued by unrests.Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-86725905731786280102010-01-25T08:42:00.000+08:002010-04-10T08:57:05.856+08:00Copenhagen: Outcome as PredictedThe recently concluded Copenhagen climate summit was viewed by many participants as a failure for its inability to yield sizable reductions in carbon emissions. But for those concerned with the welfare of the world's poor, particularly many of those living in tropical climates, the summit's failure was in fact its greatest triumph. An effort by wealthy Western country activists to limit the economic growth potential of the developing world was roundly defeated.

The effort to cap poor country growth includes an initiative called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing countries (REDD). Crafted by the World Bank in conjunction with policymakers from several rich countries, REDD's stated objective is to "avoid deforestation." But it is more accurate to say that it is an attack on palm oil producers and those who benefit from the industry's jobs and products.

It is not surprising that some of the European and North American countries that are major manufacturers of competing vegetable oil are enthusiastic proponents of REDD. After all, Europe and North America long ago cleared away their forests to make room for industrial agriculture and manufacturing, including vegetable oil production. In so doing they paved the way for sustained economic growth for their people. Regulations such as REDD impose no direct cost burden on rich countries.

The demands imposed by REDD are unfair and unnecessary. They are unfair because they make it impossible to do what rich nations have done – harness domestic natural endowments in pursuit of economic growth.

They are unnecessary because they ignore the reality of natural resource harvesting in much of the developing world today. In Malaysia, for example, policymakers and industry teamed up to set aside half the country's forest lands for protection. Fifty-five per cent of the country was pledged (at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and again at the Copenhagen meeting ) as permanent forest reserve. Adding plantation agricultural land, total forest coverage in Malaysia is greater than 70 per cent, more than any developed economy. In Malaysia, oil palm planting is only permitted in areas set aside for agricultural development and not on permanent forest reserve land.

We learned from other nations' mistakes, and we are being careful stewards of our land. We do not need those countries that abused their own land endowments telling us how to manage our resources.

The world will never be able to meet its goal of sustainable development for all if it insists on binding the economic potential of the developing world.

Yet it seems the wealthy donors, the World Bank, the UK and the US had made up their mind even before they got to Copenhagen. They had already acted to limit aid to improve forest management only to developing countries which had committed to no longer convert any natural forest to activities critical to economic growth and to provide a sorely needed boost to agricultural productivity.

As predicted in my previous blog article, developing countries will not agree to any cheap tradeoff scheme to stop deforestation and development as proposed by the UK NGOs and their goverment. It was rightly so when the Chinese negotiators dismissed the UK proposal on behalf of the developing countries and went on to negotiate the accord with the USA. The economic power of the Chinese was truely displayed in the exclusive group undertaking the accord negotiation.

The week before Copenhagen, The Economist, ran a cover story "How to Feed the World." It dramatically illustrated an emerging crisis because of neglect of the need to increase production of agriculture to meet global demands for food.

The next summit, in Mexico City, will present an opportunity to reverse these anti-development positions and chart a new way forward, one that embraces developing world economic growth and a healthy environment for all.Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-23027018345407933282009-12-02T08:19:00.000+08:002010-04-10T08:47:35.560+08:00Look out for the Malaysian Palm Oil BrandAs we approach the year end, thousands of oil palm farmers and smallholders are relieved at the prospect of palm oil prices being maintained at more than RM 2400 per tonne for December 2009. Although the lucrative prices for 2008, which were partly influenced by high prices of petroleum, could not be repeated, the present year end daily prices of above RM 2400 per tonne signal many positive trends that await the industry in 2010.

Buyers too were happy that palm oil continues to provide them with an abundant supply of affordable raw material for various end-uses. Palm oil is still sold at a discount to soya, rapeseed and sunflowerseed oils. Malaysian palm oil suppliers are able to comply with the needs of the buyers, by adhering to the wisdom that customers are always right. In Europe, even power plant operators are able to use certified sustainable Malaysian palm oil viably to produce electricity and heat. Such power plant operators have limited choice as using locally available rapeseed oil will cause their engines to malfunction because of polymerization problems of the rapeseed oil in the engines during operations.

The EU is beginning to recognize the role of the RSPO in supplying certified sustainable palm oil for its biodiesel requirements. The EU politicians are worried of their green NGOs who would otherwise campaign on banning the use of palm oil for fuel and food. Such campaigns have recently spread to New Zealand and Australia through their Zoo authorities and ''experts' who claim to be concerned over the orang utans and allegations of deforestation. Sustainably produced palm oil seems to be the solution to resolve the NGOs' concerns as banning the imports of palm oil is not a real option because it would be against WTO provisions.

Buying certified sustainable palm oil seems a viable option for the EU politicians to recommend in order to avoid being harassed by the green NGOs. For this reason, the RSPO scheme should continue to be improved to meet the needs of the EU importers.

The rest of the world continues to focus on getting enough oils and fats to meet their annual needs. Most countries are net importers of oils and fats. Only Malaysia, Indonesia and Argentina are major or significant net exporters of this commodity, and for countries which are not self-sufficient they have to buy from the three net exporter countries. The EU net imports of oils and fats amount to over 8 million tonnes per year ( equivalent to half the total export of palm oil by Malaysia ), but it is also one of the most 'demanding' net importers, insisting that palm oil must be certified sustainable when used for biodiesel. The EU biodiesel standards have some 26 parameters which palm biodiesel exporters must comply with. These pose a daunting challenge for biodiesel producers to do business with EU importers.

Moving forward into 2010, a few issues remain unresolved. I am puzzled at the misinformation still in the minds of many important people in the EU when we recently met them during our visit to Europe.

During a private consultation in London, HRH. Prince Charles in talking to the MPOC Chairman, complained that oil palm is a mono-culture industry and lacks biodiversity. Obviously many people forget that oil palm is an agricultural crop planted on legitimate agricultural land just like soyabean or olive plantations which are also mono-cultures, and it should not be compared to biodiversity in the forests. Why must the green NGOs in the UK and their followers be opposed to the growth of agricultural crops of developing countries such as Malaysia when these crops have been grown responsibly for generations and subjected to various national regulations and laws. For Malaysia, our land use policy is based on the pledge made at the Rio Earth Summit more than 15 years ago to conserve at least 50% of the country under permanent forests (to provide for biodiversity and habitat requirements), while 25% is zoned for agriculture and another 25 % for other industrial uses. With oil palm occupying 13% of the total land area, it means that for every hectare of oil palm, the country conserves 4 hectares of permanent forests. Because land for agriculture is already limited, and the permanent forests are off-limits to agricultural conversions, oil palm plantings have been much reduced. Certainly oil palm cannot be associated with deforestation in Malaysia as it should not happen except in the distant past when the current agricultural land (making up 25% of the country) was first cleared. This was needed for the country to develop, just like other countries. In comparison the UK developed 72 % of its land for agriculture and only has 11 % retained under forest.

During another dialogue in Kuala Lumpur hosted by the Minister of Trade of the UK, he suggested that the RSPO is the right platform for the oil palm industry to engage the environmental NGOs to ensure sustainable certified palm oil can be exported to the EU. He was surprised when I told him that many of the aggressive UK NGOs refused to be members of the RSPO. In fact the palm oil producers were disappointed by RSPO promoters who promised to have the NGOs as members and stakeholders to negotiate a susccessful RSPO certification scheme. Right now the NGOs outside the RSPO are more influential and they campaign against the RSPO to make those NGOs who are members of the RSPO to appear ineffective.

During a meeting with the Economic Minister of the Netherlands we were told to supply sustainable palm oil as this is what the EU wants. We did inform her in reality that there are more than 1 million tonnes of sustainable certified RSPO palm oil potentially available from Malaysia right now, but only 10 % was imported by the EU. It is interesting to note that the EU talked of putting up US$ 2 billion to compensate developing countries to maintain their forests. In reality, RSPO is a scheme that promotes the conservation of forests, but the EU is shying from paying even the US$ 50 per tonne premium for RSPO certified palm oil. At least EU importers should pay the producers to cover the cost of certifying the oil which involves employing auditors some of whom have to fly in from the EU to conduct the auditing process. In other words, the buyers must help pay for the cost of employing the EU auditors and not ask poor farmers and oil palm workers of developing countries to fork out for the extra cost of producing certified sustainable palm oil to meet the European needs.

Many other issues relating to the habitat needs of the orang utans and global warming will continue to be associated with the oil palm industry by some misinformed people and other uninformed followers of the debate. As far as Malaysia is concerned, specialized conferences on orang utans and Green House Gases (GHG) emission and mitigation have been organized during 2009. Experts attending these conferences have no major issues to raise with the Malaysian palm oil industry during the deliberations. In fact no one raised major issues that are not already addressed by the industry. Many of the environmental allegations are not relevant to Malaysia. There were almost no real issues to debate on. On the other hand, some level of satisfaction was expressed by international experts on orang utans and GHG issues in relation to efforts undertaken by Malaysia.

It is time to brand Malaysian palm oil for better public and consumer perception. Some of the brand claims could be that Malaysia is ready to supply sustainable certified RSPO palm oil to the EU market, especially for its biodiesel requirement. The RSPO's intention to incorporate on a voluntary basis carbon emission saving parameter in its certification criteria would be much anticipated as an important improvement to the RSPO scheme.

In preparing for the climate change meeting in Copenhagen, it was found that oil palm together with other plantation tree crops such as rubber, cocoa and coconut enable Malaysia, in addition to its 56% permanent forest cover, to classify itself as a net carbon sink country despite having industrialized for the last 52 years since achieving independent. Obviously it is the tree crops such as oil palm that have partly contributed to make Malaysia a net carbon sink country, effectively contributing to remove carbon dioxide from the globe when other countries are still haggling especially at the Copenhagen Climate Change meeting on who should be making the first move to reduce emissions given that most of these countries are net co2 emitters.

Getting the facts right has been the theme of this blog. Some readers may continue to question the facts as presented, and some even resort to claiming that these are lies. There must be a way forward where doubters can be assured of an authentic and fair source of information. One other way is for them to visit Malaysia and meet the producers and see the oil palm plantations. We have many plantation resorts where tourists can enjoy their visits to Malaysia. Another approach is to continue commenting and submitting your queries to this blog to exchange views. Malaysian palm oil is already a brand name that is sought after by discerning buyers and consumers. Improvements will continue to be introduced in 2010 and thereafter. Let us know how we can help.Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-19315726514256407652009-11-02T16:13:00.002+08:002009-11-05T16:49:55.277+08:00What Deforestation?
Many critics of the Malaysian oil palm industry do not know that Malaysia agreed to generously keep aside its pristine natural tropical forests 15 years ago when the country pledged at the Rio Earth Summit to maintain a minimum of 50% of its land area under permanent forests. The policy behind the pledge remains intact as Malaysia today still has 56% of its area under permanent natural forests. Such a large percentage of forests is maintained mainly for conservation purposes and to support the forest industry which enables Malaysia to be a world major exporter of tropical timber. Besides providing more than adequate area for biodiversity and habitat needs including home for the orang utans and global warming mitigation purposes, the timber industry allows Malaysia to earn some RM 22.56 billion in 2008 or 3.4% of the country's export earnings.

Timber production has gone through its own cycle of environmental attacks by NGOs and remedial measures have been put in place to ensure only sustainably managed timber and legal timber products are exported. The process of adopting an internationally recognised certification scheme for sustainable and legal timber has taken a long time to evolve as not all producer countries and importers are committed to adopt a common sustainability scheme. Malaysia has progressed much in these efforts as more and more of its timber are exported under some forms of certified timber scheme depending on the demand and agreement with the regional importers.

If Malaysia's forests are already recognised to be sustainably managed, and not be allowed for conversion to other uses in order to stabilise the area, how then can the allegations still be made by NGOs linking oil palm cultivation with deforestation? Ignorance and wrong assumptions are to be blamed. Land developed for agriculture lies outside the permanent forest areas under the country's land use policy. This means up to 50% of the country's land area can be developed into various land uses for national development. As a developing country, Malaysia needs to develop its land to build cities and towns, villages and industrial parks, recreational grounds and water bodies, roads and highways and of course create agricultural areas to plant food and commodity crops for its people. Based on the guidance of the national land use policy, about 25% of the country is allocated to agriculture and the remaining 25 % is for the other uses keeping in mind that a minimum of 50 % of the country is already locked in for conservation purposes such as permanent natural forests.

Malaysia aspires to be a developed country by the year 2020 and like most developed countries, conversion of forests into agriculture took place decades or centuries ago. In Malaysia deforestion for agriculture was pioneered by the British in the early part of the 20th Century when forest areas zoned for agriculture were cleared to plant initially coffee, then rubber and later oil palm as dictated by the feasibility of producing such crops during that time. Even after Malaysia achieved independence in 1957, the development of agriculture continued, as until then the benefits of plantation agriculture were mainly enjoyed by the British who owned most of the large plantation companies. To allow the locals to enjoy the same benefits, FELDA was created. It was mandated to develop around 2 million acres of mostly forested land to resettle landless farmers. Professional surveyors from New Zealand were recommended by the World Bank to survey the forests to identify areas suitable for agriculture for FELDA to open up its land development schemes beginning in the 1950s with funds from the World Bank .

Like the developed countries, Malaysia too can give the excuses that the main deforestation of its land for conversion to agriculture has occured in the distant past, but unlike the situation in the developed countries, development was made under the supervision of international professional land surveyors and officially funded by the World Bank. For NGOs and their followers to come back years later to make allegations linking oil palm cultivation with deforestion in Malaysia is not proper, and probably decades too late. It is akin to barking up the wrong tree. The NGOs seem to suggest that deforestation in the developed countries was something that occured in the past beyond the control of their present governments. For example, the Romans were blamed for removing most of the forests of Britain. British NGOs should also admit that Malaysia's pristine forests were mostly deforested by the British when they established their rubber and oil palm plantations during the first half of 20 th century. However, they did it in a civilised way by leaving a sizeable area of forests to be reserved as protected forests. That legacy led to the current policy of maintaining at least 50% of Malaysia as permanent natural forests.

The current land use policy as described above, brings many benefits to Malaysia especially when confronted with the challenges of the global warming debate. Firstly, with at least 50% of its forest intact, and up to 90 % of its agricultural land planted with tree crops, thus providing another 22% equivalent of the country's land with tree cover, Malaysia can still claim to be a net carbon sink country based on currently available data. We are reminded recently that President Obama proudly announced that the USA is providing incentives to encourage reforesting of abandoned agricultural lands to promote more tree cover and mitigate global warming. It would not be too difficult to recognise that most of the agricultural lands in Malaysia have been planted with forest tree species, oil palm and rubber all along (without any incentives given!). That is why Malaysia is still a net carbon sink country despite having industrialised for the last 50 years.

The second benefit of our land use policy is our ability to face up to any allegations of deforestation especially when these are linked to the development of our agricultural sector. Malaysia's forest to total land ratio is superior to that of most other countries, and so too is our agricultural land to total land area ratio. No one can accuse Malaysia of not providing enough forests to provide habitats to sustain the orang utans population as Sabah has almost 50% of its area under natural permanent forests and Sarawak has much higher. These are the two States of Malaysia where orang utans exist in the natural forests. The recently organised orang utan colloquium did recognise the need to reconnect the fragmented forests outside the main permanent forest using the concept of forest corridors to provide extra flexibility for the orang utans to travel back to the main forest after visiting the fragmented forests and nearby oil palm plantations where more food is available.

Thirdly we should be reminded that biodiversity is not supposed to be found in our agricultural land as is the case with all other countries. Our policy of conserving more than 50% of our land as permanent natural forests which include natural parks, wildlife sancturies and totally protected forest will provide for the need to conserve biodiversity. I can not help thinking how illogical some of the debates that are going on in the internet (some even by Professors) who grossly exaggerate that our agricultural lands, including oil palm and rubber plantations do not have as much biodiversity as the natural forests: why must our agricultural land including oil palm and rubber plantations have high biodiversity like the tropical forests? Are agricultural lands in the West having as high biodiversity as the temperate forests? I hope these groups will understand once and for all that when 50% of our land is locked in as permanent protected forests, preservation of biodiversity and wildlife habitats is assured. If not tell us how much more land, percentage wise, should be under forest and do the countries where these critiques come from provide their share of natural forests or plantation forests to protect the biodiversity and wildlife habitat requirements to the same high standards as adopted by Malaysia. Show us figures for comparison.

In a world where the EU and the USA would not agree to clean up their emitted CO2 unless developing countries do the same, Malaysia can claim to have already contributed its share by being a net carbon sink country. More than 80 % of the accumulated CO2 leading to the accelerated increase in global CO2 concentration was from years of industrial development taking place in the developed countries. Now the EU is proposing that developing countries must commit to reduce their emissions, or else there will be no agreement at the coming Copenhagen Climate Change meeting, meaning that the EU and USA would not clean up the accumulated emissions that they have caused in the past which are contributing to the present global warming tendency. I am sure the developing countries at the Climate Change meeting in Copenhagen in December will insist on equitable responsibility for the developed countries to first clean up their massive past emissions before commitments for future emission reduction can be shared by all countries.

The same argument is made in the deforestation debate by the western NGOs who are asking developing countries to preserve their forests while developed countries need not have to do anything because they have already deforested most of their forests. Is Malaysia supposed to help clean up the emission of the developed countries (due to their past overdeforestation) by keeping a maximum area of forests even though the country is already a net carbon sink country,( ie has taken care of its own CO2 emissions by keeping enough forests)? Some developed countries like Canada is still deforesting for agricultural development , where up to 10 million hectares are planned to be deforested in the near future. Why do the NGOs remain silent on such deforestation. How many times have the NGOs cited Canada for continuing to deforest up to 100,000 hectares per year for agricultural developments (and another 10 million hectares are still planned to be deforested), compared to accusations levelled at Malaysia where deforestation has essentially stopped 15 years ago and the total area developed for oil palm in the last 100 years is only 4.5 million hectares or less than 0.09 % of total agricultural land area of the world.

If Malaysia is already a net cabon sink country it should be appreciated for its contribution to mitigate global warming. It also means that its land use policy is working optimally to benefit the planet, the people and the national development objectives. The NGOs should not ask Malaysia to do more than its equitable share in mitigating global warming, or providing biodiversity and wildlife habitat conservation. We have already sacrificed greatly in maintaining a large percentage of our land as forest. Revenue generated from natural forests is 33 times lower than the revenue if the land is used for agriculture for oil palm or rubber cultivation. At present, our sacrifice for keeping an above average percentage of forests is not being compensated by the rich net CO2 emitter countries of the world; our role as a carbon sink country in helping to clean up the CO2 emitted by developed countries remains unappreciated; our palm oil, a produce of our agricultural industry continues to be smeared. It is hard to make sense of these illogical situations unless we agree that the ulterior motives by the EU and their NGOs are to block the import trade of a competitive product like palm oil, or allow the NGOs to collect toll money by introducing unnecessary certification schemes or shall we agree that greed and double standards have overtaken fairplay in order for some to survive in this modern world.

(Note: Follow this Blog in a future article to learn of the manupulations and professional act of omissions used to limit the import of palm oil into the EU and USA which will result in both set of countries promoting the worst biofuels on earth using locally produced oils and fats).
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-76965236138099903882009-10-27T19:30:00.000+08:002009-10-29T20:41:15.623+08:00Misquoted in The Star NewspaperMs Hillary Chew is a respected environmental campaigner for the Star and should not write words as though they were from my statements. I never said that oil palm plantations are good habitats for orang utans. Additionally, I have never seen statements by the oil palm industry insisting that the oil palm plantations have no less biological diversity than the natural forests. These are Ms Chew's own words.

Those attending the recent orang utan colloquium are free to report in any way they like. In my view, the most important finding is the report by Dr Acrenaz that the orang utans do indeed feed on the loose fruits of the oil palm. Previously, the other orang utan "experts" insisted that orang utans do not eat the oil palm fruits.

The second finding is the observation that the orang utans are attracted to revisit or transit the fragmented forests nearby the oil palm plantations. Why is it that they do not always stay in the pristine permanent forest reserves which cover almost 50 % of total Sabah land area. Maybe the pristine forest has food easily available only during fruit seasons. The oil palm plantations have fruits all year round. Being clever animals, the orang utans adapt even to living in mangrove forests near the oil palm plantations.

The meeting agreed that oil palm fruits alone would not provide a balanced diet for the long term survival of the orang utans. That is why the resolution of the colloquium was to establish forest corridors to connect the fragmented forests with the main forest reserve to facilitate the movements of the orang utans back to the main pristine forest which is supposed to be their favourite habitat.

What MPOC likes to do is to continue funding orang utan studies to enhance the survival potential of these protected animals. In addition, we are trying to help implement the establishment of the forest corridors as rightly pointed out by Ms Chew. MPOC is the custodian of the Palm Oil Wild Life Conservation Fund, and would match contributions made on approved projects on conservation such as creation of the forest corridors based on availability of the fund.Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-47427954838473611992009-10-23T13:30:00.000+08:002009-10-29T20:43:22.552+08:00Environment CommentMr Sean Whyte complained in the media as an NGO that the NGOs are doing a good job telling the truth about the manner that the oil palm industry is run. This is a good start and the role played by the NGO is most appreciated. As far as Malaysian oil palm industry is concerned, there are numerous laws in this country to protect the industry, environment and the people. NGOs are encouraged to report to the authorities of any wrong-doings, and culprits would be punished. If no report of wrong-doings can be submitted, then NGOs are simply acting as critiques spreading erroneous assumptions and "it was reported" type "facts" again and again. Let us have the complaints in the form of an official report, and the industry through its enforcement body such as the MPOB can response to the complaints. Thank you for your good intention.

Yusof Basiron CEO MPOCDr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-54114364257587316092009-09-01T08:32:00.000+08:002009-09-28T14:57:07.751+08:00Perverted Views of Anti-Developing Country(ADC) EnvironmentalistsFanned by media support, the anti-developing country environmentalists are desperately competing for the limelight by making outrageous statements hoping to impart maximum damage to the image of products exported from developing countries. The Friends of the Earth (FOE) was recently quoted as saying that "palm oil helps nobody" in their eagerness to campaign against the use of palm oil in Cadbury chocolates in New Zealand. Palm oil, exported mainly from Malaysia and Indonesia, is produced from legitimate agricultural lands just like competing soyabean or rapeseed oils. FOE is well aware that palm oil has helped farmers in Malaysia and Indonesia climb out of the poverty trap which has long been afflicting developing countries. With oil palm as their main crop, farmers in Malaysia and Indonesia are earning US $20 per day presently as compared to US$ 2 per day 30 years ago when oil palm was not a major crop. Campaigning against the produce of developing country farmers by some developed country NGOs is considered plain unethical as these farmers and plantation workers want to have a better life just like their counterparts in developed nations.

In a related event, Greenpeace, an EU based NGO, recently campaigned for New Zealand farmers against the use of palm kernel meal as animal feed for the dairy industry. Greenpeace "attacked" the famous milk brand of New Zealand (Fonterra) by alleging that demand for palm kernel meal by milk farmers will help cause deforestation.

Getting the facts wrong can be counterproductive. The natural forests of New Zealand were mostly wiped out within a generation of white settlements in the 19th and 20th centuries. These natural forests were replaced with grazing land, to produce milk, meat, and wool which are the main exports of New Zealand. One wonders why an agricultural product produced out of deforested land in New Zealand is acceptable to Greenpeace while an agricultural product from Malaysia is often demonised. Both countries cleared land for agricultural purposes long ago, and the extent of deforestation was much more extensively carried out in New Zealand compared to Malaysia. Yet no questions are raised on this matter? Why are NGOs selectively picking developing countries for their campaigns when the actual land clearance is much more obvious in countries like New Zealand and others?

It puzzles me when NGOs ask Cadbury to use cocoa butter rather than oil palm fat in their chocolate formulation. This surely does not solve the problem of alleged deforestation since cocoa is also planted on the same tropical land of Malaysia where oil palms are grown. Are these so called greenies aware that more land needs to be allocated to planting cocoa (more deforestation possibility?) since the fat yield of cocoa is very low as compared to oil palm.

Discouraging New Zealand farmers from using palm kernel meal as part of feed material for dairy cattle will damage the milk industry as yield of milk will surely decline. (Palm kernel meal helps increase milk yield in dairy cattle significantly). Without palm kernel meal, farmers have to supplement the feed shortage and overcome yield decline, by having larger grazing areas which mean a much larger area needed to be deforested in New Zealand.

In the 1950s to 1990s,when Malaysia opened up its jungle land to resettle landless farmers , surveyors from New Zealand were employed to identify land areas suitable for agriculture to plant oil palm and rubber. Are these knowledgeable surveyors not recognised for their contributions to help develop the Malaysian economy?

To me forests, whether temperate or tropical, are valuable to sequester carbon dioxide to prevent global warming. Why then are forests in tropical countries the only target for preservation? This would give developed country farmers a big advantage in exporting their agricultural products unimpeded compared to us in the developing countries. Thus the "ruling by the ADC NGOs" can only apply to those with perverted view points or those naturally opposed to developing countries trying to develop their economy and export agricultural products to earn a decent income. By practicing double standards these perverted NGOs will conveniently ignore the over-deforestation that has taken place in the developed countries which continues till today. If the intention is to reduce carbon emission, let focus on the real culprit: the use of fossil fuel contributes up to 80% of global CO2 emission which mainly occurs in developed countries, but guess who gets the eventual blame - again China and India - .. another popular perverted viewpoint of some NGOs and even western governments.

While writing this piece, the Hon. EU Ambassador to Malaysia came to my office to discuss progress in the palm oil industry in relation to the EU proposed legislation for renewable fuels. He confirmed the concern of the EU for Malaysia not to repeat the mistakes of the developed countries which have over-deforested and have lost biodiversity due to extensive agricultural development. I wonder if the EU automatically assumed that Malaysia will make the mistake of developed countries. When asked why the EU cannot correct their own mistakes by replanting the lost forests, he replied that it was difficult (I couldn't help thinking that they can spend billions sending people to the moon!), but did say that some countries are beginning to reforest. I also pointed out that on a per capita basis, our forests are currently providing a free service by cleaning up (sequestering) the CO2 emitted by developed countries because of their high per capita consumption of fossil fuel, and our countries should be compensated. There are no freebies in this world. In response, the Hon. Ambassador was keen to explore Malaysia's proposal as he believes that Malaysia has some possible solutions to offer which the EU may be keen to pursue.

Malaysia should therefore be able to offer its oil palm production model that is linked to the EU concept of sustainable development if the EU in return offers to compensate for sacrifices made to maximise our forest cover. Currently Malaysia's reforestation programme is funded by the government to the tune of RM 2 billion under the 9th Malaysia's Five Year plan. In the coming 10th Malaysia's Five Year Plan, the timely availability of a compensation scheme from the EU could further extend the reforestation programme. Such win-win proposal will allow the EU and their NGOs the opportunity to pay for the extra forests that they desire while our agricultural products such as palm oil are not haressed through the threat of legislations and other trade barriers which could undermine the income of developing country farmers.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-32667753847199513352009-07-07T14:55:00.000+08:002009-09-28T14:55:50.097+08:00The Blame Game on Carbon Emission, Sustainability & Rainforest Conservation
The proposed Copenhagen Climate Change Summit in December 2009 has generated intense interests from the EU and USA to advance their initiatives on reducing carbon emission to fight global warming and climate change. The EU which is hosting the summit is expected to aim for a successful adoption of an international emission mitigation agreement. However, as there are still many issues to be resolved in order to agree to a common position, the NGOs are expected to intensify their lobbying efforts on policy-makers to keep up the pace of negotiations.

In the run-up to the December event, stakeholders should watch closely the arguments that will dominate the debate. The focus will be on the position of individual countries regarding the amount of green house gas(GHG) that they emit to the atmosphere. If a country is a net emitter of GHG, it will be labeled as a "carbon source". If it is a net sequester of GHG it will be regarded as a "carbon sink" . The largest source of GHG responsible for the increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere over the last 100 years is mainly attributed to fossil fuel, which is reported to be responsible for up to 80 % of total increase in global emissions. Global warming, when linked to carbon dioxide emission should be attributed to this fossil source. The developed countries, which emit a high per capita CO2, will likely point fingers at countries with large population base like China and India, therefore denying their role in increasing global emissions.

To further divert world attention, issues of minor relevance such as rainforests conservation will be brought into mainstream discussions. Many EU and US NGOs are already seen to be forming or aligning themselves with their favourite rainforest and orang utan conservation movements by preparing reports to champion this cause in the tropics. Agricultural crops of tropical countries are often blamed by these NGOs for deforestation and used as a disguise for causing global warming. Of course, the web pages of these NGO also call for donations from the public to join them in pursuing the rainforest conservation initiatives, where apparently a lot of money can be raised through the rainforest and orang utan conservation debate. After all, the cuddly orang utan easily moves the emotions of uninformed consumers.

Some of the absurd arguments already proposed by global warming scientists and NGOs are as follows:-

The USA and the EU which previously were a "carbon source" because of deforestation for agricultural development many decades ago are now labeled as a net "carbon sink" because some agricultural land areas abandoned by farmers have reverted to become forests again. The catch in this argument is that although the original CO2 released during the first deforestation is still in the atmosphere, the global warming scientists are now ignoring this fact and are assuming that if agricultural land is reforested, the land will automatically become a new carbon sink. Logically, the reforested land can only sequester a fraction ( generally less than 100% ) of the CO2 originally released to the atmosphere during the first deforestation. It would be impossible for the same land to revert to a 100% carbon sink status again unless the new forest exceeds the carbon capture capacity of the original forest. It is ironic that the global CO2 emission map of some climate change scientists only focuses on emission effect of deforestation over recent times in order to show favourable carbon sink effect of developed countries. Developing countries which still need to clear land to develop for agriculture will show poorly as an increasing carbon source. The fact that developed countries need to reforest because they have little forest left and the need of developing countries to develop their agricultural industries because they have not been developed yet will likely to be ignored in the debate. Furthermore, the emission effect of fossil fuel use is likely to be ignored in order to have a convincing map for the USA and Europe to avoid carbon emission and global warming blame and therefore conveniently shifting it to deforestation in developing countries.

Based on the above scheming, South East Asian countries will be depicted in a global map as a "carbon source" because agricultural lands are created through so called recent deforestation. The global warming scientists argue that for the developed countries, where deforestation was carried out decades ago, past CO2 emissions would be treated as "sunk costs" in their creative accounting, and if farmers voluntarily reforest, the land is regarded as a new carbon sink. In this way they believe that even if the agricultural land is not reforested, the land is no longer regarded as a carbon source because the CO2 from the original deforestation is already in the atmosphere. Fortunately, this simplistic argument of indirect land use effect (ILUC) was questioned in the recent US House of Representatives debate last week, and they rightly decided not to allow, in the next 5 years pending a further study, the use of such ILUC calculations in arriving at sustainable biofuel criteria, because if proper evaluation is carried out, corn biofuel cannot pass as a carbon sink when the past deforestation effect of the land is taken into consideration.

Many versions of this "creative accounting" of carbon emissions are likely to surface as we approach the Copenhagen meeting. Arbitrary cut-off dates for deforestation to develop agricultural land have already been proposed in the RSPO criteria and the EU renewable energy directives. Emission capping, emission saving limits and reduced emission from deforestation and degradation (REDD) initiatives are being proposed by some circles in the EU to help prevent deforestation. Unsubstantiated NGO reports are regularly surfacing to justify some of these arguments to push the global warming blame to deforestation of rain forests in South East Asia. For these obvious reasons, the palm oil industry is dragged in and used as a camouflage to devert attention from the actual problem. With all these proposed initiatives to prevent deforestation of tropical forests, numerous possibilities for creative accounting will be available and many potential regulations will follow which essentially will become trade barriers to products exported from developing countries. Logically, if 80 % of global CO2 emission is from fossil fuel, 80 % of the debate should be dedicated to finding solutions to mitigate the contribution of fossil fuel emission mainly by the developed countries.

If only 20% of global emissions is attributed to deforestation, we must also logically look at where agricultural land areas are residing and attribute the loss of forests to these lands. These agricultural lands carry with them carbon emission debts due to deforestation irrespective of whether the forests were cleared decades ago or recently because the CO2 remains in the atmosphere and acts as a GHG to raise global temperature. The rainforests and temperate forests may vary in their carbon emission capacity when deforested but the variation is less than 20 % and the global warming blame should also apply equitably to deforestation that has occurred in the developed countries.

If we revisit the data that world agricultural land area is over 4967 million hectares, and assume that these areas make up most of the other 20% emission due to past deforestation, the proportion of total oil palm area for both Indonesia and Malaysia of slightly over 10 million hectares would not constitute much compared to world agricultural area. Therefore, it follows that deforestation due to the development of agricultural land to plant oil palm is equally small. If the 4.5 million hectares of oil palm area of Malaysia, being part of our agricultural land, constitute only 0.09 % of global agricultural areas and therefore assumed to account for only 0.09 % of global deforestation due to the country's oil palm agricultural development, it does not deserve to be smeared as a cause of deforestation as propagated by some overzealous NGOs. Further, if deforestation as opposed to fossil fuel is only contributing 20 % towards global warming effects, Malaysian palm oil's contribution of 0.09 % of global deforestation will only have 20% of 0.09% i.e.one fifth or 0.018% of global warming effect. If the temperature rise, as projected by global warming scientists, is to increase by 2 degrees centigrade in the tropics in the next few decades, the effect of 0.018% contribution from deforestation due to Malaysian oil palm plantations is mind-bogglingly small - 0.00018 x 2 or 0.00036 degrees centigrade! I must admit that as an engineer, my arithmetic calculation is often reduced to approximation to the nearest 1 or 2 decimal points and the above figure should just be read as zero.

I have not even added the carbon sequestration effect of the oil palm as forest species when planted on agricultural land in the calculations. If global warming scientists insist on painting a rosy picture of the US becoming a carbon sink because some farmers allow trees to re-grow on their abandon farm land, it must similarly be recognised that the oil palm farmers have been doing just that all along i.e. planting trees on their agricultural land; therefore oil palm cultivation should be equally regarded as a carbon sink. However, unlike the reforested abandoned farm land of the USA which has minimal output, oil palm plantations also allow the world to be supplied with a vital food source globally while locally, the crop keeps poverty away from ravishing the rural community of developing countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Columbia, Nigeria and many others. But the many proposals for "creative carbon accounting" (or in short cheating) being suggested by vested interest groups in the developed countries will not recognise the advantageous carbon sink attributes of the oil palm to mitigate global warming unless the developing countries have a real say in the negotiations in the Copenhagen Climate Change Meeting in December this year.

(As a footnote, I need to inform that the global warming scientists do not know where a significant 33 % of total disappearance of CO2 is attributed to. The oceans absorb a significant amount of CO2. Increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere also facilitate more photosynthesis by plants leading to greater utilisation of CO2. Tropical and temperate forests absorb a lot of CO2. These still could not account for the remaining 33% disappearance of CO2. In the absence of reliable scientific explanation, global warming scientists resort to modeling climate change using assumptions and scenario buildings. Under such situations, any likelyhood of global warming scenario can be generated by the models depending on the assumptions used. Non scientists and lawmakers should not rush into any conclusions regarding global warming as all that the scientists can do at present is to develop models and simulate outcomes based on their favorite assumptions.)
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-14128342232530194432009-05-06T11:11:00.037+08:002009-05-15T23:09:28.905+08:00Palm Oil Exploited to Fuel Culture of LiesThe UK Independent newspaper has recently published a report to reveal the presence of the ever popular palm oil in food products in the country. The report does not reveal anything new. It has always been known that palm oil is widely used in numerous food products that we use or consume everyday . In fact, credit should be given to the UK for promoting the use of palm oil in food products since the beginning of the 20th century because the British were among the early pioneers to cultivate oil palm in the Far East and import palm oil to supplement the chronic shortages of oils and fats in the country.

What is new in the report is the vengeance with which the Independent took it upon itself to demonise palm oil with the accusation that this ever popular palm oil causes "catastrophic impact on the wild life of Malaysia ...",... " whose rainforests are being cleared to grow the crop". Many other unfounded statements taken without close scrutiny for accuracy from NGOs environmental campaign reports are used by the Independent to justify its call on the food industry to stop using palm oil.

I actually analyse every sentence on the front page of the lead article:"An oil shock we cannot ignore" by the Independent on 1st May. Almost every sentence on the page is not true and therefore a lie. How is it that newspapers like the Independent are resorting to telling lies to make a sale nowadays. Is it that bad in the UK? True, these dramatic sentences were already mentioned by NGOs in their past reports, but that does not qualify them to be taken as truths.

We all know that the culture of lying was developed into a fine art by President Bush and PM Blair when they tried to make a case for invading Iraq. Look at where they are now after their own people rejected their brand of leadership. Unfortunately, the Independent sees it fit to propagate this new culture of lies, under the guise of going green. I can therefore predict that the Independent newspaper will soon loose credibility and go out of print for propagating lies. How long can one lie to the public even if they are vulnerable during these difficult times of gloom and doom.

Attacking the agricultural produce of developing countries using fabricated lies manufactured by the Greenpeace and other UK led environmental NGOs is uncalled for as our farmers have been growing oil palm on their legitimate agricultural land long before the Independent was established. Why it it that all of a sudden our palm oil that feeds billion of people round the world is projected as undesirable. Palm oil was not denied its role in the food industry when the British owned most of the oil palm plantations in Malaysia in the 1960s and 70s. Malaysia has not deforested its land in the way portrayed by the Independent. Our permanent forests are intact and protected by law and cannot simply be converted for oil palm cultivation. This is why we still maintain more than 55% of Malaysia under permanent forest cover compared to just 11 % of forest left in the UK. World deforestation is occuring at the rate of 10 million hectares per year. Oil palm is not to be blamed as the deforestation rate is totally uncorrelated to the combined oil palm area of Indonesia and Malaysia of only slightly over 10 million hectares created after being in existence for about 100 years.

We live in a world that is littered with half truths, many of which are propagated by intelligent people. Have they ever wondered on the implications of their actions which may affect the livelihood and families of oil palm farmers in distant countries. Many of these farmers are probably living from hand to mouth on a daily basis and struggling to feed their families with a sustainable source of decent income. Terrorizing the oil palm industry by publishing blatant lies can be likened to the Somalian pirates who live on immoral earnings by attacking defenseless ships passing their waters.

The writers responsible for the Independent controversial articles are either very ignorant about deforestation in Malaysia or they are simply cashing in on the readers appetite for dramatic stories even if they betray the public trust on them to report factual truth. We have often opened our doors by inviting the UK media and NGOs to dialogue but they resort to using the printed media to tell blatant lies on palm oil sustainability. For example, a palm oil sustainability seminar was held in London in March 2009, but the media and some relevant NGOs failed to show up despite many of them having registered to attend. I would encourage these misguided writers to be brave enough to visit a real oil palm plantation in Malaysia and tell our oil palm farmers why the palm oil that they produce is not as acceptable as the olive oil produced by the EU farmers.

In my assessment, oil palm plantations in Malaysia are anytime better farm models than olive plantations in Europe, or any large scale farm operations in the UK. Why must the Independent newspaper "attack" our well managed agricultural oil palm farms and not "attack" the inferior and subsidised farms operated in Europe. For example, olive plantation farms in the EU (I saw some in Spain and Portugal while on holidays) use too much water or need irrigation; they are proned to desertification and soil erosion by wind; they have almost no biodiversity, and contribute minimally in combating global warming. The olive plantations are so inferior in environmental sustainability compared to oil palm plantations in Malaysia that it is a shame that the NGOs and Independent newspaper decided to pick to denigrate palm oil and not olive oil.

If the argument is against deforestation that took place long ago to create these olive and other farms around the world including oil palm cultivation, let it be known that the land used for oil palm cultivation in Malaysia is only 0.09% of total world agricultural area. Surely 0.09 % of world agricultural land is not responsible for world deforestation or global warming; it is more logical to focus the blame on the rest of the 99.91 % of the world agricultural areas which reside mostly in the developed countries. What the Independent is doing is like blaming the Malaysians for global warming because we use a few cars when in fact the developed countries are the ones using cars more intensively and should be blamed for global warming.

The Independent article still talks of raising money in the West to give to Malaysia to help save rainforests and such a move apparently will be proposed at the coming climate change meeting in Copenhagen in December. It is a good idea if the West can "bail out" the rainforests (in addition to their banks and car firms in financial trouble) from being decimated especially for areas in the tropics where forests are truely being removed. But focusing on Malaysia as a location of deforestation is the wrong target and attributing the blame to palm oil is truely cruel as contrary to the allegations, palm oil is likely to help save forests by indirectly preventing clearing of forests for planting soyabean and rapeseed to overcome world shortages in oils and fats. This is termed the "deforestation avoidance" effect of high yielding oil palm when palm oil from Malaysia is imported to meet world shortages (see previous blog article).

It would be even better if the Independent proposes to promote reforestation to combat climate change by allowing more trees to sequester green house gases (GHG),and the UK is the best place to start the initiative as it is also the one with the least percentage of forest left and so far no effort to reforest is announced yet. I was also informed that the UK had only two species of frog left and yet the Prince Charles Rainforest Initiative is using the frog (toad) as an icon in the hope of saving frogs in the tropics. Could this be another wrong target of focus due to misinformation? (I will talk of the 'frog trap' set in Brazil in my next article in this blog).

Yet another relative (sister-in-law) of the present Prime Minister is reported in the Financial Times (May 6, 2009) to be secretely filming the Penans of Sarawak to raise Western sympathy to save rainforests from the logging industry. This apparently is setting the stage for supporting the Prince Charles Rainforest Initiative which was launched the previous day. Actually, the Penans have chosen to cultivate their land with oil palm (being the most viable agricultural crop as an alternative to rubber)and some are already becoming millionaires; why is it that Ms Rewcastle (The PM's sister in law) is not keen to interview these progressive Penans and learn of their plans and aspirations. She should ask the Penans as to who among them do not wish to be wealthy like the successful (wellknown Penan millionaire) oil palm plantation owner.

I hope the Prince Charles Rainforest Initiative will stumble onto my Blog and discover that the rainforest destruction report submitted by unscrupulous NGOs are false generalizations, especially for Malaysia. The Independent newspaper may not want to publish counter viewpoints from Malaysia as they have editorial control over what can be published in their own papers and seem to monopolise the media. But with the Internet nowadays, one cannot stop other people from telling the truth, or pointing out the inferior standards of olive farms in the EU when compared to oil palm farms in Malaysia.Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-87205691188816736472009-04-24T09:32:00.004+08:002009-05-04T09:41:08.823+08:00De-linking NGOs Concerns over Deforestation and Palm Oil
1. A few years ago when oils and fats were cheaper than petroleum, the EU and USA rushed to promote the use of biofuels for various reasons. One not-so-frankly-revealed reason was that oilseed farmers will benefit from the new market outlets and the increase in prices. The governments also benefited from this strategy because agricultural subsidies would be reduced if prices of soyabean and rapeseed were high and price support subsidies would not be needed. In addition, it makes good political statements to say that biodiesel will help reduce global warming through reduced green house gas emissions, and also enable the countries to be less dependent on imported petroleum fuels.

2. Diverting a major portion of rapeseed and soya oil supply and stocks for biodiesel did result in increasing prices which benefited the EU and US farmers tremendously between 2004 and the middle of 2008. During this time, it became obvious that palm oil was a potentially good raw material to participate in the biodiesel industries in both the EU and USA as it is generally cheaper than soyabean or rapeseed oil. This resulted in increasing concern amongst the EU biodiesel lobbies who are integrated with the rapeseed industry over the potential competion from palm oil and they tried to prevent it from being imported for biodiesel production and use in the EU. This was also to ensure that biodiesel subsidies are not shared with competing imported oils.

3. Various trade barriers were set up by the goverments. For example, biodiesel standards were developed in the EU to disqualify palm oil biodiesel from being accepted. The cold flow plug point(CFPP) standard was introduced to ensure palm oil did not meet the required test and the anti palm oil lobby was relieved at the new arrangement. However, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) announced that palm oil biodiesel methyl esters can be processed with a new technology that would overcome the CFPP problem. Furthermore, if the blending of biodiesel is only at 5%, the CFPP value of palm oil biodiesel methyl esters becomes irrelevant as the 5 parts of palm biodiesel is totally dissolved by the 95 parts of petroleum diesel giving an acceptable blend. However, unknown to many, tallow produced in the EU and used for biodiesel would also fail the CFPP test and this would not go well with the local tallow lobbies.

4. EU farmers continue to question the reason for an imported commodity such as palm oil biodiesel to be accorded biofuel subsidy which is meant for local oilseed farmers. The outcries became louder as some power plants began to use palm oil as biofuel and enjoyed the subsidies and the cheaper prices. The rapeseed lobbies were worried that by allowing cheaper palm oil for use as biofuel in vehicles and power plants, it will eventually affect the demand for local oils, and create a substantial outflow of subsidies.(This narrow view ignores the fact that Malaysia imports large amount of EU and US goods and needs market access for its exports in order to remain a valued trading partner.)

5. A new import barrier for palm oil was subsequently introduced arising from the view of the former Dutch Environmental Minister who argued that if palm oil is encouraged for use as biofuel it would stimulate an increase in production leading to the opening of forest land. This apparently will affect the environment, animal habitats and biodiversity. He was able to introduce the fear factor of what could happen in the future if palm oil demand undergoes a rapid increase.

6. The environmental NGOs were quick to sieze on the opportunity to harp on the fear of potential deforestation, and started to report on orang utan habitat loss and global warming effects of oil palm cultivation on peat. The change in focus from deforestation due to logging to now oil palm plantation became a refreshing rallying point for NGOs perpetual campaigns. Afterall palm oil has more money to offer than the logging industry which has over the years witnessed a decline.

7. Once the issues of deforestation and palm oil fell into the hands of NGOs like FOE and Green Peace who use unscrupulus methods to attack their target victims, the whole issue of biodiesel development and protection of subsidies was totally forgotten. The farmers in the EU and USA who are worried by palm oil invasion for the new found application of their oils and fats as biodiesel are totally served by the NGOs who gladly run the anti-palm oil campaign while pocketing huge amount of funds. The collusion to get the NGOs to campaign against palm oil was cleverly disguised. It was reported for example, that the Dutch Lottery money of a staggering US$2 million was instrumental in financing Green Peace to carry out a blockade of a ship carrying palm oil from leaving an Indonesian port to sail to Europe in 2007.

8. It is clear that the fear factor used is based on the assumption that if demand for biofuel is increased, more oil palm cultivation will occur thus causing deforestation. Fortunately, Malaysia has consistently proven the assumption as baseless and wrong.

9. Let me debunk the various fallacies that are often cited to paint a bleak picture of the ever popular oil palm.

 Fallacy 1 Oil palm plantations are claimed to be the cause of deforestation. Palm oil producing countries such as Malaysia have permanent forest reserves which take up to 55% of the country's total land area. Laws are in place to disallow these permanent forest areas to be converted to other uses including for agriculture or growing of oil palm. The remaining forest areas are meant for conversion into other uses, including agriculture. Some of these conversion forest areas are already alienated to individuals or organisations although the land may still not yet be converted and remain under forest cover. NGOs like Green Peace argue that these unconverted areas should be declared as forest through a moratorium on deforestation which essentially means a stop to a developing country like Malaysia from using its potential agricultural land to improve the life of its farmers. It is equivalent to asking the EU farmers to reforest back some 50 % of their agricultural land to help prevent global warming and preserve biodiversity. In all fairness, Greenpeace should agressively campaign for reforesting 50 % of agricultural land of the UK and EU and if successful, Malaysia should have no problem following the standard set by the EU in terms of land use ratio for agriculture.

 There are also calls by NGOs for the Prince Chales Conservation fund to compensate developing countries for conserving more forests. Logically, these funds would be better used to reforest the over extended and over deforested agricultural areas in the UK. Most agricultural land can be easily reforested if so desired. The slogan "Plant Thy Own Forest" and "Stop Envying Thy Poor Neighbours Green Backyard" can be adopted. Otherwise Green Peace is cunningly introducing double standards where the EU can deforest and develop these areas into agricultural land, while the developing countries farmers are comdemmed to perpetual poverty by preventing them from exercising their sovereign rights to develop their agricultural land.

Fallacy 2 -It is often claimed that the expansion of oil palm cultivation will affect the habitats of the orang utans in Sabah and Sarawak. A recent study revealed that orang utan population is Sabah has not declined because the permanent forest area ( the favourite habitat of the orang utans that was surveyed five years ago)has not changed over the last five years. The study further revealed that the orang utan population in the non-permanent forest areas is increasing based on the survey of nesting sites. More surprisingly, orang utans living near oil palm plantations were observed to regularly visit the plantations to feed on loose oil palm fruitlets and benefit from an all year round availability of a healthy food source which is naturally rich in vitamin A and E, giving the orang utans a healthy shining coat. This suggests that development of the oil palm as a crop and conservation can successfully operate side by side.

 Fallacy 3 The third fallacy is linking oil palm to deforestation and attributing this to global warming. The oil palm planted area of 4.3 million hectares in Malaysia represents a mere 0.09% of the world agriculture land. Assuming these areas were originally forests, Malaysia's share of deforestation for world food production is 0.09 %. I wait to see the NGO global warming scientists' prediction on the rise in global temperature caused by oil palm cultivation in Malaysia that resulted in 0.09 % of total deforestion via agricultural development. Even doubling the oil palm area may not add substantially to the world deforestation total. However, expanding oil palm may save deforestation by curtailing the rapid expansion of other inefficient land-use oil seed crops which need to be grown otherwise to overcome world shortages.

Cultivated Area of Oil Seeds in the World | Click here to view the full resolution

Fallacy 4Potraying palm oil as inferior to soyabean or rapeseed oil in global warming debate. Oil palm in Malaysia and Indonesia is an agricultural crop which is grown mainly for the export market. We are the only two major net exporter countries (Argentina is a distant third)for vegetable oils and fats. The rest of the world are mostly net importers. It implies that if palm oil supply is reduced in the future, ten times more forest areas will need to be converted to agriculture to meet the shortages by growing soyabean or other annual oilseed crops compared to the area needed to grow oil palm to produce the targeted quantity of oil.

Mileage per hectare per year - Based on a new VW Polo | Click here to view the full resolution

Recently, it was revealed that new varieties of oil palm are capable of increasing the yield by 3 times more and if further research to stabilise this yield potential is undertaken through international collaboration, palm oil can be a sound candidate to help solve not only future food shortages but also the biofuel need of the world. In simple terms, it has been calculated that a hectare of oil palm will potentially produce oil sufficient to fuel a VW Polo car 400,000 km of travel per year including the use of the methane fuel generated by the oil palm mill effluent, while a hectare of soya bean can fuel only 8,000 km of travel by the same car as a comparison. The irony is that the EU and USA are gladly promoting the most inefficient bio fuel derived from soyabean and rapeseed sources ,which can only mean massive deforestation possibly in Agentina, Brazil or where ever soyabean and rapeseed can be grown. The opportunity for oil palm to serve as an efficient fuel source and to save more forests from being converted into soyabean and rapeseed farms is sadly overlooked and we can only blame this on the manupulative science which is used by NGOs to raise emotions and blur the truth from reaching the attention of decision and policy makers in the EU and USA.
Dr Yusof Basironhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-1035778113649537972.post-27362365503308661642009-02-11T10:02:00.002+08:002009-02-11T10:06:17.503+08:00Revisiting Sustainable Palm Oil Production
I constantly receive invitations to speak at various seminars to explain the sustainability of palm oil production from Malaysia. Maybe it is confusing for the layman and industry players who receive conflicting claims from agencies like the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) and Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), as opposed to counter-claims by NGOs some of whom are totally anti-business and anti-developing countries in their stance.

Some of the NGOs are habitually harassing members of the RSPO, an international organization formed to help improve sustainability practices in the production of palm oil around the world. Like any new set-up, results will be forth-coming in a matter of time. But, these NGOs keep changing the goal-post, even though other prominent NGOs are members of the RSPO and are responsible for crafting the principles and criteria upon which the certification of palm oil is carried out.

Even without the RSPO, palm oil production in Malaysia is governed by laws and regulations aimed at making the industry "viable". This "viability" provision was incorporated in the Malaysian Palm Oil Board's (MPOB) act although at that time it was not fashionable to use the word sustainable . The dictionary states that viability and sustainability roughly have similar meanings.

The palm oil industry is among the first to consciously apply R&D, licensing and registration activities to ensure the viability and sustainability of the industry. These are the functions entrusted and carried out by MPOB as it is a legally established body set up to see an orderly development of the palm oil industry. None of the other oilseed crops in the developed or developing countries has such a supervisory body to ensure the viability or sustainability of the targeted commodity.

Under the country's many laws impacting the operations of the palm oil industry, it is possible to claim that palm oil is produced more viably than any other oilseed crop and through the close similarities in meaning between viability and sustainability, palm oil is much more sustainably produced as compared to other oilseed crops produced worldwide.

One can still pose the theoretical question, "Is Malaysian palm oil sustainably produced?". Given the laws and regulations long put in place and the agencies created to supervise the palm oil industry, it is unfair to claim that palm oil is 'not sustainable'. After all, there is no certifying body to prove that it is 'not sustainable'.

If "not sustainable" is not the answer, the lawyers' yes or no approach will tell us that palm oil production is "sustainable" even though some moderate NGOs often advise me to use the term "more sustainable".

To prove palm oil's sustainability, the producers willingly volunteered to agree to form the RSPO so that through its vetting process, sustainable palm oil can be certified. It is rather obvious that instead of applauding the companies who pass the stringent test of once again proving sustainability, NGOs who are not members of RSPO pick successful RSPO members as targets and prepare extensive and inaccurate reports to inform the world that the certificates awarded to the successful RSPO members are defective. The NGOs who are members of the RSPO seem contented that their counterparts outside the RSPO are insulting them by not recognising the good efforts that they have put in to bring RSPO thus far in introducing sustainable certification for palm oil. Ironically, those who are not successful in getting the RSPO certification are not targeted.

Other competing oilseed crops planted in the EU or the USA, the motherland countries of some of these 'anti-developing countries' NGOs, are similarly not targeted to prove certification for sustainability.

Certification is costly and time consuming. In the auditing process for RSPO, the oil palm farmers have to verify each boundary stone to prove that the land is legitimately theirs. They have to account for all the weedicide empty bottles to ensure safety procedures are followed. How many thousands of boundary stones will the palm oil farmers need to show to the auditors (who fly all the way from Europe) to fulfill the certification criteria to qualify them to obtain the RSPO certification whereas their counterparts in rest of the world need not face such a hassle.

We have 150,000 small farmers and about 3,000 estates covering 4.5 million hectares of oil palm plantations. These oil palm farmers have been farming their land for generations, and their legitimate agricultural land that they own have nothing to do with deforestation. These are indeed agricultural land.

Some of the EU NGOs however are not happy with the situation, and have offered to teach and train the oil palm farmers how to grow their oil palm sustainably as advertised in their websites. (I bet that some of the EU NGOs sitting in their posh London or Amsterdam offices would not recognise the three types of palm trees popularly planted in Malaysia, let alone teach the Malaysian farmers a course on sustainable planting of oil palm). How do you teach and train when you have no sound knowledge on a tropical crop ? It takes years for planters to learn all the parameters before they can claim to be experts.

By organising threatening demonstrations and anti palm oil campaigns in the EU, the NGOs have put considerable fear in politicians who then to try to find ways to comply with sustainability certification if palm oil were to be used as biofuel in the EU, for e.g. as recently seen in Germany. Why discriminate and require certification on the agricultural products of our farmers when the products of their farmers do not require such certification. Oil palm was cultivated in Malaysia long before soyabean was planted in Europe.

Others too are escaping the scrutiny of the anti palm oil NGOs whether by intention or otherwise. By focusing on palm oil biofuel these NGOs allow the petroleum companies to continue to pollute and emit green house gases by promoting the continued use of fossil fuel. Last year, petroleum companies made huge profits (in the billions of dollars) but none seemed to be invested in reforesting Europe or USA where deforestation had occurred, and the GHG which has been released from past over-deforestation remains in the atmosphere. The only way to remove the released GHG is to reforest the EU which has over developed its land; up to 70 % of the total land area is used for agriculture.

Let's face it, the real culprits are the fossil fuels. Maybe the NGOs are doing the fossil fuel industry a great service by diverting attention towards deforestation. Every 15 cars in their lifetime emit GHG equivalent to the deforestation of one hectare of forest. The EU introduces 15 million new cars every year and this will emit GHG equivalent to 1.5 million hectares of deforestation. In ten years the deforestation equivalent of EU's new car population is estimated at 15 million hectares.

Both the oil palm planted areas of Malaysia and Indonesia which have been in business for almost 100 years are only about 11 million hectares and these are part of their agriculture land. Even then, oil palm occupies less than 5% of Indonesia's land area. The oil palm industry allows the country to be self sufficient in food oil and to export the surplus to other countries to earn some US$17 billion which helps overcome poverty in the country.

Let's get the facts right. Indonesia still maintains more than 50% of its land area under permanent forest. Malaysia allocates 12% of its land area for growing oil palm which takes up 66 % of its agricultural area and maintains more than 50% of its land area under permanent forest.

The NGOs often call for developing countries to stop developing our agriculture and preserve our forests. They do not care whether we have enough food produced for the country, or generate sufficient revenue to attain a decent standard of living. They want a moratorium on deforestation which means a stop to agriculture because in the tropics, whatever is not allocated as agricultural land for now will look like forest when viewed from a satellite picture which will be the key tool used for monitoring deforestation.

Because of the potential contention of what constitutes degraded land that can be rehabilitated by planting suitable crops such as oil palm or rubber, many developing countries would be reluctant to agree on a blanket deforestation policy. They will probably agree if forests that are classified as permanent and sustainably managed forests, national parks, and animal sanctuaries are declared off limits to agricultural development. In Malaysia such forests are already gazetted as permanent forests . Even if it has to be used for some other purposes, the law requires an equivalent area of replacement to be provided.

Some NGOs like to quote me as making an over claim on the sustainability issue. As a former head of the MPOB, my job was to prosecute lawbreakers in the oil palm industry by issuing them compounds or taking them to court so that their offences are dealt with appropriately.

In any community, industry or country, there are always lawbreakers who do not follow the rules. I am sure it happens also in the countries where the NGOs reside. If the public or NGOs provide evidence of the lawbreakers misdeeds, authorities like MPOB will immediately take action.

In an industry that is governed by laws, it is a welcome move if the NGOs are willing and able to submit evidence of wrong doing committed in the oil palm industry. A report by an NGO on actions taken by the Sabah Forestry Department forest land encroachment is proof that the law is being enforced. If the forest land is encroached upon by illegal immigrant workers who think that shifting cultivation is still tolerated, the relevant authorities will act to enforce the law, and such plantation will be non sustainable. That will imply that the legitimate oil palm plantations on agricultural land are sustainable.

Dr Yusof Basironhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com