Fearing tobacco's fate, palm oil industry fights back

Left: Land that has been cleared is pictured at an oil palm plantation in Johor, Malaysia Right: A worker unloads palm oil fruit bunches from a lorry inside a palm oil mill in Bahau, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia - Reuters filepics

KUALA LUMPUR: On the morning of Feb. 26, executives from a Washington consultancy presented a strategy paper to some of the most powerful officials in the Malaysian palm oil industry.

The message: Don't allow environmental activists and Western governments to tarnish palm oilto the extent that it ends up a pariah product, like tobacco.