Countering Prejudices Against Palm Oil

WESTERN lobby groups have been running down the palm oil industry because they view the golden crop’s healthful profile as a formidable threat to their hegemony in producing and marketing their own soy, rapeseed and corn oils.

In their smear campaigns, these groups have even claimed oil palm cultivation destroys rainforests and their wildlife habitats and also lays to waste large swathes of otherwise productive agricultural land.

However, studies show oil palm is one of the most productive of all the oilseed crops with an enviable yield of more than 4.5 metric tons per hectare as against the miniscule 0.5 metric tons yield typical of its competitors such as soy, rapeseed and sunflower.

Such high productivity means less land is required for oil palm to produce the same amount of oil as the competing oil seeds. The oil palm tree is also sturdy, remaining productive for 20 to 30 years and harvestable annually without replanting whereas the other oil crops have to be replanted annually.

In Malaysia, an oil palm plantation — because it is highly productive — can be established on legitimate agricultural land without the need to clear forests indiscriminately. That is why Malaysia still has a forest cover close to 70 per cent despite planting oil palm for more than a century and being hitherto the world’s largest palm oil producer.

In stark contrast, the industrial west from where the self-styled paragons of conservation originate can hardly claim 20 per cent forest cover.

World Growth, a non-profit NGO, agrees that palm oil is highly sustainable in developing economies. Only 0.26 hectare of land is required to produce a tonne of palm oil whereas soybean, sunflower and rapeseed need 2.2 hectares, two hectares and 1.5 hectares, respectively, to produce the same quantity of oil.

What this means is that soybean requires eight times more land to produce the same quantity of oil compared to palm oil.

Oil palm cultivation has also been blamed for the imminent extinction of the orangutan but such finger-pointing is as spiteful and as it is illogical since the primates’ population in the wild in Borneo alone is estimated between 45,000 and 69,000.

So how is it possible, even remotely, for the orangutan to become extinct within the next three or four years as claimed. The numbers just don’t add up, especially with on-going efforts to protect the big apes in conservation enclaves set up in both Malaysia and Indonesia.

The lobbyists have stooped to the chicanery of making ludicrous claims to advance their agenda but people are no longer easily fooled by their ulterior motives.

In a recent development regarding palm oil, the French Senate threw out a budget containing a proposal to increase tax on the commodity.

The reason for the rejection was that the proposal not only had no scientific basis but also contained an “inflammatory and baseless” tax on palm oil — up by 300 per cent from around 100 British pounds (RM397) to 400 British pounds (RM1,587).

Shorn of its selective perception, the proposal is tantamount to an unwarranted and unjustified attack against hundreds of thousands of small farmers across our country. Its rejection is, thus, wholly justified.

The French senator, Yves Daudigny, who tabled the proposal, claimed palm oil was “most rich in saturated fats and its harmful effect on health has already been established.”

Such frivolity does not stand up to well-founded research showing that palm oil, being a vegetable oil, is actually cholesterol-free
and good for heart health as it is rich in heart-friendly anti-oxidants.

The French senator is also ignorant of a proven fact — that the bulk of saturated fats consumed in France comes from animal sources such as meat, milk, cheese and butter – NOT palm oil. In fact, consumption of fats from animal sources amounts to 34.4 kg a year while palm oil consumption per capita in France is only 2kg.

Despite the scientifc proofs and solid stats, the lobby groups continue to discredit palm oil. Is it about the environment or plain economic jealousy? Obviously, the latter.

The upside is the opportunity presented for Malaysia and France to work together in returning to a science-based discussion and countering public perception of palm oil, currently based on hyperbole instead of truth.

We should look forward to working with those of our enlightened overseas partners — through a government-sponsored joint task force — to check the lies being spread about palm oil.

And hopefully, the proposed inflammatory tax on the commodity will be consigned to the dross of history. The Borneo Post