FRIDAY, 27 APR, 2018

Palm buyers urged to work on sustainability

YOGYAKARTA: Buyers are wrong to remove palm oil from their products and should instead focus on working with sustainability schemes and smallholder farmers, an Indonesia-based conservation organization said on Tuesday.

British supermarket chain Iceland said earlier this month that it would remove palm oil from its own-brand food by the end of 2018 as part of efforts to stem deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia and help species under threat of extinction.

&ldquo It is just the latest fashion that buying palm oil is a bad idea,&rdquo said Robert Nasi, director general of the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR).

Much better is for buyers and consumers to work with sustainability bodies and schemes, like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), and then strengthen those standards, Nasi told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The managing director at Iceland, which trades from 900 stores and which specialises in frozen food, said the company did not believe there was such a thing as sustainable palm oil available to retailers.

Palm oil is used in a wide range of food and household products, from biscuits, ice-cream and chocolate spreads to soaps and cosmetics, as well as in biofuels.

&ldquo The main issue is not palm oil &mdash it is where it is planted,&rdquo said Nasi, speaking on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Rainforest Summit in Yogyakarta, on the Indonesian island of Java.

Palm trees produce four to 10 times more oil than other vegetable oil crops per unit of cultivated land.

Home to the world&rsquo s third-largest tropical forests, Indonesia is also the biggest palm oil producer. Environmentalists blame much of the forest destruction on land clearance for the crop.

There are more than two million smallholders in Malaysia and Indonesia &ndash the two countries that dominate the world&rsquo s supply of the vegetable oil.

These farmers produce about 40 per cent of palm oil from those two countries, but suffer low productivity and are often blamed for unsustainable farming practices like slash and burn forest clearing and peatland destruction.

Big palm buyers like Nestle, Unilever and Procter & Gamble run small schemes that try and improve sustainability among smallholders, and conference officials backed such efforts.

&ldquo Working with the palm oil producers is important &hellip to ensure that Indonesia can increase the production but without expanding into the forest,&rdquo said Christoffer Gronstad, a climate change and forest expert at the Norwegian Embassy in Indonesia.

Norway and Indonesia signed a bilateral agreement in 2010 to tackle deforestation and boost economic development. &mdash Reuters

Source :  The Borneo Post

FRIDAY, 27 APR, 2018

Malaysia, Indonesia must cooperate against EU palm oil ban

MALAYSIA and Indonesia should take the European Union&rsquo s plan to ban palm oil imports by 2021 seriously.

Although the World Trade Organisation has ruled in favour of Indonesia on challenges to anti-dumping duties imposed on its biodiesel exports to the EU earlier this year, EU is continuing its policy of banning palm oil products.

Indonesia and Malaysia are the two largest producers of palm oil, contributing to 85-90 per cent of global production. Palm oil is a strategic commodity for Indonesia and Malaysia, hence, trade barriers to palm oil are a threat to the countries&rsquo national interests.

It is urgent for Indonesia and Malaysia to formulate a roadmap of economic diplomacy &mdash a reactive and sustainable and long-term palm oil diplomacy.

Indonesia and Malaysia have a very strategic and important bargaining position with EU, especially through the Council of Palm Oil Producer Countries (CPOPC).

CPOPC&rsquo s position becomes a very decisive variable as it controls more than 90 per cent of the global palm oil supply. The question is, how can CPOPC be a force in palm oil diplomacy?

CPOPC&rsquo s position as a tool to repel EU policies that harm Indonesia&rsquo s palm oil exports will have a strong bargaining power if, firstly, Indonesia cooperates with Malaysia through CPOPC against the EU&rsquo s palm oil policy.

Secondly, CPOPC should no longer function as a demand management organisation, but must transform into something akin to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

OPEC, which controls only 81.5 per cent of the global oil production, has become a global oil trading organisation that is influential in the international relations arena. OPEC can control prices and influence the supply-demand economics of oil-consuming countries.

It is politically urgent to reform CPOPC&rsquo s position and function. Otherwise, it will forever be on the losing side of the supply-demand equation. Indonesia&rsquo s and Malaysia&rsquo s role in bringing about this reform is crucial.

Rafli Zulfikar

Researcher, Centre for International Studies and Trade, Jakart

Source :  New Straits Times