Anti-palm oil lobby ups the ante

Barking up the wrong tree: Logging and land clearing are bigger deforestation issues compared to planting oil palm, which the anti- palm oil lobby chooses to ignore.

The campaigns against palm oil in the West and Australia have been persisting for years. They focus on social, environmental and nutritional issues. Lately, they have sought to influence consumers and legislators. Should we be worried?

Yusof: The anti-palm oil lobby among Western non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and some of the politicians is a matter of great concern to our industry because it will influence consumers’ acceptance of palm oil thus affecting the demand and opportunities for palm oil. Hence, we have to take necessary actions to counter the allegations levelled at us. Some of these lobbyists, who are actually supporters of other vegetable oils, put their interests together with the environmental NGOs and anti-palm oil campaigners because this will mean better market share for their vegetable oils. In fact, this is sheer protectionism. We have to understand the motivation behind these campaigns. If they are environmental NGOs, their objectives are not met because they cannot reduce deforestation, methane gas emission or saturated fat consumption just by targeting the palm oil industry. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has published a report saying it is the cattle industry that devastates forests as the scale to convert them into farms is thousand times greater compared to that of the palm oil industry. If they want to raise the deforestation issue, they should understand the side effects of the cattle industry. Besides, saturated fats via the consumption of meat and dairy products as well as greenhouse gas emission are all attributed to the cattle industry.