Smallholders can help boost palm oil yield

By Rupa Damodaran

The Malaysian palm oil industry can improve its current productivity of four tonnes oil yield per hectare by improving on the productivity of smallholders, says Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Dompok. "Smallholders productivity can be enhanced through new technology and good agricultural practices," he said at the launch of the International Palm Oil Sustainability Conference 2010 in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, yesterday.

Oil palm smallholders who include those under Felda, Risda and Felcra are expected to raise their current level of below 3.5 tonnes to 4.0 tonnes by 2014, with the support of the replanting scheme by the government to replace old low-yielding trees. Dompok said the current productivity is about 20 per cent of its theoretical potential oil yield of about 17 to 18 tonnes per hectare.

Malaysia, the second largest producer and major exporter of palm oil, last year produced 17.56 million tonnes of palm oil and exported close to 15.87 million tonnes..The total revenue generated from the exports of palm oil and its products in 2009 was valued at RM49.59 billion, or 7.5 of the country's gross domestic product.

Dompok said the world today has a fair and substantial quantity of RSPO certified and sustainable palm oil from producer nations including Malaysia. However, the uptake of Certified Sustainable Palm Oil has been extremely slow. Although research has proven that palm oil is the better oil, there are moves to label palm oil in food products. These include the proposal to the Australian Senate to label palm oil products in isolation from other food products and linking it to issues such as deforestation and the endangerment of the orang utan.

"This proposal has the consequence to disadvantage palm oil and impede trade and consumption of this nutritional product," he said.

Dompok said for every hectare of oil palm, Malaysia preserves four hectrae of permanent forest, which is a very healthy balance in terms of land use policy. Meanwhile, Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) chairman Datuk Lee Yeow Chor, commenting on the European Union's recent statement that 90 per cent of Malaysia's palm oil exports will not be affected by the Renewable Energy Directive, said:

"For us, even the remaining 10 per cent is of concern ... we want to correct the misconception that affect the demand of our palm oil."

Lee said the MPOC is well-geared to tackle issues such as the blame for loss of wildlife habitat and biodiversity. The RM20 million Malaysian Palm Oil Wildlife Conservation Fund has enabled the survey of orang utan population in Sabah together with the Sabah Wildlife and the Borneo Conservation Trust and Hutan NGOs. Yesterday, MPOC signed a memorandum of understanding with the Sabah Wildlife Department and Shangri-Rasa Ria Resort for the funding and launch of the Sabah Wildlife Rescue and Care Centre.

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