Palm Oil Exploited to Fuel Culture of Lies

The 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.

De-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.

Revisiting 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.

The Science is on the side of Palm Oil

Palm oil's success in penetrating the world market in a dominant way over the last three decades was due to its popularity for use in food and oleochemical sectors. Initially producers of competing oils felt threatened by the rapid advancement in the market share of palm oil. This resulted in deliberate campaigns mounted in the USA in the 1980s to discourage the importation of palm oil.

Health issues were used as a disguise to set up trade bariers linking palm oil to saturated fats as these fats were known to raise cholesterol levels. However, these claims were not supported by any well designed nutritional studies. On the contrary many comparative studies showed the neutral or lowering effects on cholesterol by a palm oil diet especially when compared to coconut oil or fats in the habitual western diet.

In other studies when the liquid olein of palm oil was compared with (liquid) olive oil or (liquid) canola oil, the cholesterol lowering results were similar.Similarly, blends of palm olein with soya and /or canola oil, had a beneficial effect of improving the ratio of good HDL (high-density lipoprotein)to bad LDL (low-density lipoprotein) cholesterol. Such findings have been patented and products made under such patents in the USA are allowed by the Foods and Drugs Authority(FDA) to carry the label "Patented blend to help improve your cholesterol ratio."

With the growing interest in the detrimental effects of trans fatty acids(TFA), studies comparing palm oil and TFA were conducted. It became clear that trans fatty acids have the dual negative effects of increasing the bad LDL cholesterol and reducing the good HDL cholesterol, while palm oil has the effect of raising the good cholesterol, and lowering or having a neutral effect (non significant increase) on the bad LDL cholesterol. This led experts to conclude that palm oil is a reasonable alternative to TFA especially when fat products are required for funtionality purposes.

Trans fats are produced by hydrogenating soft oils to make them solid for use in baking and margarines. Hydrogenation produces artificial TFA which cause the double negative effects on cholesterol levels. The health authorities in the USA are discouraging the consumption of TFA containing fats. TFA have been scientifically linked to the incidence of heart disease.

Based on these scientific studies, the entire anti palm oil campaign machinery in the USA did not succeed in dampening the palm oil demand because science was and continues to be on the side of palm oil.

There are those who will argue that the poly-unsaturated oils will reduce cholesterol more than palm oil. This question was actually investigated by comparing palm oil and corn oil against coconut oil as a positive control. The study revealed that palm oil raised the good HDL cholesterol and reduced the bad LDL cholesterol. Although corn oil reduced the bad LDL cholesterol more than palm oil but it also reduced the good HDL cholesterol when tested against the coconut oil control. This study clearly indicated that corn oil does not help improve the cholesterol ratio. These scientific results make it difficult for any expert to conclude that corn is better than palm oil or vice versa.

Numerous scientific studies showed that palm oil although having up to 50% saturated fatty acids does not behave as a saturated fat in that it does not raise cholesterol levels like saturates. Studies were conducted to help explain the "unexpected" non-cholesterol raising effects of palm oil. One study found that as long as there is a small percentage presence of unsaturates (as usually is the case in practice because the body receives blends of oils and fats), palm oil is non cholesterol raising in its behavior. Others postulate that palm oil molecules have unsaturated fatty acids occupying the middle position of the three glyceride carbon chain, and this unsaturation makes palm oil non cholesterol raising.

The beauty of science based studies is that the results are repeatable. References to these studies can be easily made available in case such experiments need to be repeated.

But this is not the case in the current practice of NGOs who offer their unsubstantiated opinions and provide only incomplete evidence relating to the environmental debate on palm oil. The anti-palm oil campaigns conducted by some so called environment friendly European NGOs failed to provide concrete proof on deforestation effects of palm oil. (Showing pictures of legal agricultural land under preparation for oil palm planting is no proof of deforestation).

Despite the resouces available in the EU there is no systematic scientific study on the carbon dioxide emission saving on palm oil based biofuel. A pathetic (non-scientifically derived) carbon emission saving figure of 32 % was arbitrarily assigned to palm oil to make it fall below the thresh hold level of 35 % which is used as the minimum level accepted for biofuel raw material in the EU. Ironically, rapeseed oil in the EU qualified because some "experts" assigned it a default carbon emission saving figure of 36 %. If proper LCA studies were indeed conducted and the carbon sink properties of the oil palm trees and the deforestation avoidance effect of palm oil were accounted for, the carbon emission saving figure for palm oil biofuel would be more than 100%, making it the ideal renewable biofuel. Again, in these postulations, the science favours palm oil. Eventually the truth will prevail despite the manipulation of carbon emission saving figures for palm oil in the EU.

Overall, the current anti-palm oil campaign conducted by some NGOs in the EU seems to attack the agricultural sector of a developing country like Malaysia. If the EU governments manipulate the emission saving figure to disqualify palm oil from being used as normal raw material for biofuel, they too are guilty of colluding with the NGOs by setting a trade barrier against the agricultural produce of a developing country. If the palm oil producing countries in turn were to retaliate by not favouring the importation of EU produced cars in preference for Japanese and Korean cars makers, the world's current economic recession will likely last longer, especially in Europe.

Even though Malaysia designates a small portion of its land area for agriculture(less than 25% of its total land) and oil palm is an agricultural crop, the NGOs and some environmental scientists still insist on criticizing the oil palm plantation as not having high biodiversity like the forest. Why can't these commentators be fair and match apples with apples by comparing oil palm plantations with other agricultural crops? They also insist that palm plantations will destroy forests. Again, all agricultural land in Malaysia must be derived from the clearing of an original forest, and no body is denying that because a country like Malaysia will try to develop its agricultural sector to an optimum level for example by planting oil palm on degraded land that is suitable and zoned for agriculture.

In reality a hectare of oil palm plantation will produce on average 4 tonnes of palm oil and when this is imported by other countries, it will save them from cutting 10hectares of forest if they were to grow their own soyabean crop to produce 4 tonnes of oil equivalent. Oil palm plantations have an indirect land use effect of saving ten times more forest area in the importing countries when they import their palm oil from Malaysia. This is referred to as the deforestation avoidance effect.

For those opposed to the development of biofuel, it is good to know that the oil from one hectare of oil palm plantation provides the longest travel on a standard car compared to any other biofuel including ethanol from sugarcane (or at least 10 times more distance than the oil from a hectare of soyabean). Countries such as Malaysia should feel lucky in having plenty of palm oil based biofuel to cater for its need in future when fosil fuel continues to be a scarce commodity.

Malaysia has its own biodiesel policy and technology. It needs to develop the local use of palm biofuel to reduce dependency on fossil fuel, and as a palm oil producer, there is a need to find new applications of palm oil to increase its market value. The announcement by the Malaysian Government to undertake mandatory blending of palm biofuel with petroleum diesel starting from February 2009 and the implementation of this policy means that palm biofuel market is no longer restricted to exist only in the EU .

The demand for biofuel will unlikely lead to deforestation in Malaysia as implied in the allegations by some of the EU NGOs. Why should Malaysia jeopardise its forests to accede to the wishes of the EU to meet its biofuel targets. In practice,palm oil will be available for biofuel to the world only when its use as food is already fulfilled and the excess (which causes prices to fall) will be cheap enough for use as biofuel. At most other times, palm oil will likely be expensive for use as biodiesel, since food demand due to chronic shortages of supply faced by most countries of the world will force palm oil prices to increase. Only Malaysia and Indonesia are major net exporters of oils and fats, (mostly palm oil), and Argentina is a distant third as a net exporter of mainly soyabean oil, while most other countries are net importers of oils and fats. This time, not only will the science favour palm oil in the environmental debate, the lack of alternative large sources of oils and fats availability also favour palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia to remain the major source of supply to the world market whether for use in food or biofuel.

Creating a fine balance for development, food security and environment sustainability.

In the ongoing sustainability debate, it is important for a developing country to ensure a fair balance between the need to develop its economy, produce sufficient food for its people and preserve the environment for sustainable development. Unfortunately, for environmental NGOs, the one-sided focus on only the environment projects an extremely unbalanced viewpoint.

Malaysia, as a developing country, has been successful in bringing about this balance by continuing to invest in the agricultural sector, in addition to developing its manufacturing, tourism, IT and services sectors. For a developing country, land is always identified as an asset that can be developed both to generate revenue and to achieve food security. If all these developments are carried out in a sustainable manner, the environmental preservation and conservation objectives are eventually fulfilled.

The contributions of palm oil and rubber to the Malaysian economy range from 5 to 8 % of the country's GDP. These two commodities not only helped Malaysia to fight the malaise of poverty but also provide the much needed food and income for the rural communities. Globally, palm oil and rubber from Malaysia are vital commodities to meet the world's industrial and food needs. For example, tyres for aeroplanes and large transportation vehicles have to be made with a high percentage content of natural rubber. Malaysia's contribution is significant as it is the world's major exporter of natural rubber. Similarly, more than 150 countries depend on palm oil from Malaysia for their supply of vegetable oils and fats for cooking, frying, making margarine and bakery fats, oleochemicals and other uses. While 55% of world oils and fats exports are accounted for by palm oil products, Malaysia alone supplies an estimated 30 %!

The major food items of the world are fats, proteins and carbohydrates. Producing palm oil (a fat) is what Malaysia does best with its agricultural land. On the other hand Malaysia has no natural advantage in producing the other two food components ie proteins and carbohydrates which the country imports using excess income from the exports of palm oil. Simple economics therefore tells us that the country achieves food securinty in fats, proteins and carbohydrates by importing the latter two using the excess income from the exports of the former.

It is crucial for a developing country to have an assurance of food security especially by employing its most important asset- agricultural land. Such an assurance makes it easier for the country to develop its other economic sectors. One often sees failures to develop a country's economy when food insecurity prevails, and such countries often have to depend on foreign food aids.

Oil palm happens to be an efficient and high yielding agricultural oil crop. To produce the current 20 million tonnes of palm oil and palm kernel oil products, Malaysia only employs 4.5 million hectares of agricultural land or 13.6% out of the country's total land area of 33 million hectares. If the country were to produce 20 million tonnes of soyabean oil instead, assuming international yield capability of 0.4 tonnes per hectare, Malaysia would need 50 million hectares of land, which it obviously does not have.


Palm oil is now seen as the key to the successful formula used by Malaysia, as a developing country, to achieve a fine balance between bringing continuous development, achieving food security, and preserving the forests and the environment. A significant 60% of the total land area is still intact under permanent forest, most of which is subjected to sustainable forest management under the ITTO protocol.

A lack of appreciation of these achievements has led to unwarranted calls by certain environmental NGOs for a moratorium on deforestation based on their simplistic accusation that oil palm cultivation is associated with deforestation. If forest lands are already safeguarded by the existing laws of the country and are further subjected under international protocol to be sustainably managed, calling for moratorium on deforestation does not make sense and will be considered redundant.

Furthermore, it is also unethical , immoral and somewhat patronising for NGOs of the developed countries in Europe to ask developing countries such as Malaysia to stop developing its land. This will lead to conflicts and misunderstanding because some states in Malaysia have not yet had the opportunity to develop their agricultural land as they were until a few decades ago under oppressive colonial rule. Sarawak which achieved independence from the British later than Peninsular Malaysia had only developed 8% of its land for agriculture as compared to over 70%by the UK. But there are still opportunities in Sarawak and other parts of Malaysia to develop degraded logged over land for planting oil palm and rubber to increase the country's sources of foreign exchange while avoiding deforestation of its pristine permanent forests.

It is highly likely that the government and people of Malaysia are enlightened enough themselves to be more concerned than the EU NGOs and the EU governments on the need to preserve their pristine permanent forests for the benefit of the present and future generations. I would urge NGOs to refrain from campaigning against the use of palm oil as this is unfair to our farmers who have been exporting the agricultural produce for many generations in the past. Palm oil is an agricultural commodity that has been produced on agricultural land for generations, just like the production of rapeseed and soya in the EU countries.

It is even more perplexing to hear of attempts by irresponsible EU NGOs wanting to protest against the arrival of RSPO certified palm oil into the EU. Such a negative move should be condemned as RSPO is a sincere multi-stakeholders attempt to improve and ensure the sustainable production of palm oil for the export market. The establishment of the RSPO was initiated by NGOs like the WWF and the Malaysian palm oil industry gladly took up the challenge and proved sustainability was possible in a well organised sector that has long adhered to proper rules and regulations. RSPO has just started its sustainability agenda and further improvements can be anticipated. Instead these NGOs who seem to want to remain outside the RSPO fraternity could make a more positive contribution through offering their fertile ideas to improve palm oil sustainability if they join and become members of the RSPO. The Malaysian palm oil industry was hopeful that the RSPO, however imperfect, should be the platform to nurture and promote sustainability and not be the stage where non member NGOs undermine the sterling efforts by plantation company members who have been certified as capable of producing RSPO certified palm oil. It is time for readers to write back to these irresponsible NGOs to protest against their high handed approach in denying producers and farmers from a developing country access for their products to be exported to the EU market.

I would also like to encourage ill-informed environmental scientists not to compare the biodiversity of an agricultural crop such as the oil palm with that of rain forests. The findings would not win you a Nobel price. A fair comparison should be made with soyabean, rapeseed, corn or sugarcane or other agricultural crops. Biodiversity that exists in the oil palm plantations is a bonus for all to benefit, while we continue to enjoy a consistent supply of oil for our daily food needs, in addition to palm oil- an agricultural commodity - helping to promote economic growth not only in the developing countries but also in all other countries involved in using the product.

Dialogue on Sustainability, Deforestation and Global Warming

The writer had the pleasure of chairing a joint Q&A session with the Hon. Malaysian and Indonesian Minister

During a recent series of meetings between Malaysian palm oil delegation members and European Ministers, Members of Parliament, EU Officials, experts and NGO representatives, it became clear to me that some of the European dialogue partners have very strange perceptions and views relating to deforestation, sustainability and carbon dioxide or green house gas (CHG) emissions. I took note of their views and tried to analyse why they were often very much opposed to the views of the palm oil producers who are involved in the day to day operations of the oil palm industry.

Question from EU Member of Parliament: - “Agricultural crops usually draw too much water from the soil resulting in water shortages which later lead to desertification. Will oil palm cultivation lead to water stresses resulting in unsustainable production?”

From my experience, such a question is best answered if the questioner can visit a typical oil palm plantation in Malaysia. As the Hon. MEP was later informed, the oil palm grows well in the tropical climate of Malaysia where evenly distributed rainfall exceeds the ideal level 2000 mm per year. As there is no irrigation needed water is not diverted away from water bodies therefore avoiding water shortages and stresses. Even water used for processing during oil extraction is recycled, after treatment, to waterways thus avoiding environmental problems.

The lack of knowledge on oil palm plantation and using other temperate crops as bench mark seemed to be the reason for the inaccurate perception and suspicious nature of the question posed by the Hon. MEP.

Question from a big buyer of palm oil: - Why can’t the palm oil industry stop converting forests for oil palm plantations, and instead work hard to increase yield per hectare which ultimately will increase supply sufficient enough to meet the expansion in demand for palm oil?

The gentleman was basically posing a theoretical question although he was very serious. In theory, it is possible to double the yield of the palm in Malaysia and individual plantations have regularly achieved such results. His own company which used to have oil palm plantations in Malaysia tried to increase the yield for their estates and surrounding smallholders but failed to achieve substantial improvements. It is even more difficult to have the whole industry to double the national average yield because of the heterogeneous players of small-scale farms and big plantations.

To demand a moratorium on deforestation is too premature and will be punitive to developing countries. Developing countries are yet to develop their agricultural sector fully and a state like Sarawak has only 8% of its total land area under agriculture compared to 70% in the UK. Large tracks of degraded forest land can be developed into agricultural areas with the potential of rehabilitating the land into sustainable agricultural areas and the revenue generated will help preserve the remaining forests from unwarranted encroachments and subsequent degradation. Oil palm is the best crop to help rehabilitate the ecology of degraded tropical land while bringing remunerative income.


Although there are many types of forest classification in Malaysia, and they can serve different functions including for agriculture, our dialogue partners in the EU seem to know only the phrase “tropical rain forest” and hold the view that these forest must be preserved at all costs. In Malaysia every area of land was originally rain forest and the present non forest areas will revert to become rainforest if left undisturbed for about 20 years. A moratorium on no deforestation will simply mean no development, and the country will remain underdeveloped forever.

A large turnout at the World Sustainable Palm Oil Conference 2008 in London

It is better for NGOs and green MEPs in the EU to campaign hard to recreate the over-deforested (agricultural)land of Europe into reforested areas. The objective of maintaining biodiversity and sequestering carbon through reforestation in Europe would contribute significantly to prevent global warming, and this sets a good example for developing countries.It would even be better if the EU countries can follow the standard set in Malaysia and Indonesia where forest areas exceed 60 % of total land area while still managing to produce and export vegetable oils (palm oil and palm kernel oil) accounting for 75% of world net exports of oils and fats.

A common question asked by the dialogue partners during the meetings was how the EU authorities arrived at such a damaging typical default figure of 32 % carbon emission saving for palm oil compared to petroleum fuel, which makes its look the least desirable raw material for biodiesel production.

Apparently, an incomplete equation and a punitive assumption of processing in-efficiencies were used to show low default values for palm oil. The typical default value for palm oil was even lower than the accepted thresh-hold carbon emission saving figure of 35 % stipulated in the proposed EU biofuels directive.

It is illogical for a perennial crop with an all-year-round lush green canopy similar to that of a planted forest type of environment, and that yields ten times more oil per hectare compared to soyabean, to be given an inferior carbon emission saving default figure of 16%.

A study using the Life Cycle Inventory Technique by Dr Chen, a scientist with the Standard and Industrial Research Institute of Malaysia (SIRIM) showed that palm oil is a net carbon sequester when used as biodiesel. It means that palm biodiesel achieves carbon emission savings of more than 100 % when compared to petroleum diesel, and not 16% as assigned by the EU authorities. This is derived from the carbon sequestration and multi co-product characteristics of the oil palm, and if confirmed by other independent studies, this new figure will mean that only palm oil is fit to be used as biodiesel while the other competing oils will only have a marginal carbon emission saving effect and most of them will not meet the new thresh-hold carbon emission saving of 45 % proposed in the latest EU biofuels directive.

Carbon Emission Blame Game - Will the Real Culprit Please Stand Up!

Image source: www.abc.net.au

The largest source of carbon emission leading to global warming is by burning of fossil fuels. The developed countries are the largest per capita emitters of carbon dioxide because of their high level of economic activities. Because fossil fuel is needed for economic activities and wealth creation, carbon emission seems to be not an issue for these developed countries. Instead, they even demand the OPEC countries to increase petroleum supplies so that more fossil fuel can be burned (more carbon emission) to sustain their countries economic growth.

Nevertheless, when it comes to the use of palm oil as biofuel, the argument is completely altered. The carbon dioxide emission from palm oil biofuel is blamed as contributing to global warming. They are also scheming to blame palm oil biofuel as non sustainable due to deforestation claims by NGOs.

Attempts are made to disqualify palm oil from being considered for biofuel in the EU, and Oregon and Minnesota States in the USA without any scientific basis. Yet, palm oil is an agricultural commodity, similar to soyabean or rapeseed oil that has been traded in the world market for decades. Oil palm cultivation has long been an economic activity of Malaysia and other developing countries. Curtailing Malaysia's economic activities by restricting the use of palm oil in biofuel is unfair - as there is no curtailing of the use of soyabean oil or rapeseed oil for biofuel. Similarly, the use of fossil fuel continues, although it is known to emit the maximum amount of carbon dioxide.

Malaysia has a right to use part of its land for agriculture. Approximately, 20 % of total land in the country is under agriculture, while 60 % is reserved as permanent forest. Putting a stop to agricultural expansion for a developing country whose assets are in agricultural land is unfair. The developed countries do not stop expanding the use petroleum fuel knowing that this will affect their economy although fossil fuel emits maximum carbon dioxide and causes global warming.

Malaysia's agricultural area of 6.5 million hectares represents a mere 0.08 % of world agricultural land area. It is generally agreed that most of the world agricultural land was originally forest. Therefore the forest utilised by Malaysia for agricultural activities must be 0.08% of total world forest used for such purposes in the past. Since oil palm occupies 66% of Malaysia's agricultural land, only 0.05 % of the world's original forest which was lost to agriculture was used for cultivation of oil palm by Malaysia. Since 6% of oil palm area in Malaysia was peat land, the world forest land lost to agriculture due to planting of oil palm on peat was 0.005%. I fail to understand how the NGOs are blaming the oil palm as a large source of carbon emission when the amount of peat land used by some farmers who plant this crop to support their families is only representing 0.005% of world forest lost to agriculture.

If one intends to find the real culprits for the cause of deforestation due to agriculture, there are many other crops and countries that can be singled out. As a perennial agricultural crop, Malaysian oil palm is in fact a carbon sink as all the oil palm trees provide all- year- round green cover for 97% of the total oil palm areas ( 3% is under relanting). The oil palm plantations behave as a planted forest in terms of carbon sink properties, and as an agricuiltural crop, it supports an important economic function of Malaysia similar to soyabean which supports the economic function of many countries.

There are also questions posed on biodiversity in oil palm plantations. But what about other crops that are planted elsewhere? Do they have biodiversity on their agricultural land? It is not fair to insist on high level of biodiversity to exist on our oil palm areas because it is an agricultural crop. Biodiversity exists on the permanent forests which have been generously provided for in Malaysia's land use policy. It is not fair to ask Malaysia to sacrifice its agricultural activity as the carbon emission saving is neglible. It is far more ironic to know that the developed countries that speak so highly of good standards and claim to be saving the planet from destruction refuse to set good examples themselves as they continue to ask OPEC countries to increase petroleum supply (certain to increase carbon emission) to fulfill their economic appetite.