EU attack on small farmers unjust, discriminatory

IT’S a fact. The livelihood of 3.2 million small farmers in Malaysia will be severely impacted by the European Union’s (EU) latest action to ban palm oil biofuels from its Renewable Energy Directive (RED) programme by 2020.

For small farmers whose income for decades are mostly dependent on the cultivation of oil palm and selling of palm fruits, the EU’s reckless and discriminatory act is set to drive them back to a life of poverty experienced back in the 1970s.