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.

Palm 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.

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.

Biased 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.