The palm-oil advantage in biofuel

In reality, protectionist measures are being cleverly disguised as environmental issues, which are being exploited and propagated as anti-palm oil campaigns by environmental NGOs to increase financial contributions from unaware sympathisers. Any measure to exclude palm oil will naturally contravene World Trade Organisation provisions.

Although statements issued in the Netherlands say that only palm oil from sustainable sources would be allowed in the biofuel industry, ironically, no vegetable oils, even those produced in the EU or US currently, have a sustainability certification scheme in place. Therefore, to stipulate that palm oil be certified sustainable for biofuel use in the EU is likely to be regarded by exporters as a non-tariff barrier against WTO rules.
In essence, Malaysia does a huge service in reducing global warming by having 60 per cent of its land under permanent forest and keeping less than 20 per cent for agriculture. Countries have a sovereign right to utilise some of their land for agriculture. It is unethical for European NGOs to criticise Malaysia for using only 20 per cent of its land for agriculture as opposed to 70 per cent in European countries.

Malaysia utilises 90 per cent of its agricultural land for rubber and oil palm, which are essentially planted forests yielding timber and fibre in addition to rubber and oil as co-products. They contribute significantly to biodiversity as both rubber and oil palm behave as forests. In industrial countries, biodiversity on agricultural land is rarely mentioned.

The 4.1 million hectares planted with oil palm in Malaysia represent less than two per cent of the land area devoted to the planting of oil seeds worldwide. If forest is sacrificed for vegetable oil production, then it must have come from the remaining 98 per cent or 240 million hectares of land used to cultivate low-yielding oilseed crops such as soya-bean, rapeseed or sunflower in Brazil, the US, Argentina, EU, India or China.

New Straits Times