A 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.

Australian 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.

Critical 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.

Sustainability: 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.