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Fight the Smear Campaign against the Oil Palm Industry - Koon Yew Yin

Koon Yew Yin
Publish date: Fri, 17 Jan 2014, 11:15 AM
Koon Yew Yin
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An official blog in i3investor to publish sharing by Mr. Koon Yew Yin.

All materials published here are prepared by Mr. Koon Yew Yin

Fight the Smear Campaign against the Oil Palm Industry

Koon Yew Yin

I refer to the Business Times 17th Jan 2014: Head Line 'Wilmar hurting palm oil exports'

MALAYSIA will lose billions of ringgit in palm oil exports should Wilmar International Ltd be allowed to discriminate against Sarawak's palm oil supply.

Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (Soppoa) said it strongly rejected attempts by Wilmar, Unilever Plc and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to discriminate against the state's palm oil supply and, in the same process, jeopardise Malaysia's palm oil exports.

 "We are very disappointed with Wilmar's unilateral action to discriminate against palm oil harvested from oil palm trees grown on peat soil," said Soppoa manager Melvin Goh.

Read more: 'Wilmar hurting palm oil exports' http://www.btimes.com.my/Current_News/BTIMES/articles/20140117014922/Article/index_html#ixzz2qcXEvjUr

My article:

Some observers in the west used it as an occasion to bad-mouth the oil palm oil further. In this article, I will try to share some facts of life in the oil palm industry so that Malaysians will not join the western world in their smear campaign.

Firstly, we must remember that the west had cut down their forests and trees centuries ago to develop their countries.  Malaysia and Indonesia are both new comers in the development scene and have been felling our forests for only a few decades now.  Of our tropical agricultural crops, oil palm is the most recent cash crop commodity.

Although there has been a rapid rate of exploitation, it still occupies a small proportion of our total land area.  The oil palm industry in Malaysia accounts for 15.5 per cent of total land area and only 4.5 per cent of total land area of Indonesia.  A large proportion of the oil palm plantations are also not newly felled forest but are old rubber plantations that have been converted to this more lucrative crop.

Many in the public know of my views which are critical of many developments in the country.  However, praise needs to be given when it is deserved; and our home grown oil palm industry is one which deserves all our support. This support is important in view of the sustained criticism made against the oil palm industry by lobby groups that have their origin in the west.

Why We Should Support Our Oil Palm Industry

There are many good reasons to support our oil palm industry in Malaysia and Indonesia. These are some of the most important.

1.    Firstly it is not only Felda settlers that are dependent on the crop for a livelihood. Malaysia’s annual US$25 billion (RM79.75 billion) palm oil exports support some two million jobs and livelihoods along the sprawling value chain. This means that one in every five working Malaysian is dependent for his or her livelihood on the crop. 

2.    Plantations have borne the brunt of the bad publicity. However, the small farmers are also affected. More than 40 per cent of oil palm planters in Indonesia are smallholders whilst in Malaysia they contribute to 38 per cent of the country’s palm oil output.

3.    Environmental activist groups such as World Wildlife Fund, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace have launched many campaigns alleging that the expansion of oil palm plantations have destroyed forests, threatened endangered wildlife and robbed indigenous peoples of their land. Many of their arguments are not based on fact but are sensationalized from a small and atypical number of cases.

4.    The anti-oil palm lobby in the west includes pro-soya bean and rape-seed groups who see oil palm as a major competitor and have recruited food lobbyists to play on fears of the health hazards of palm oil consumption. . Together with environmental activists, these well-funded groups have created trade barriers to the global oil palm trade under the pretext of environmental activism.

5.    In a fair contest amongst competing vegetable oils, palm oil will win hands down. The oil palm tree is the world’s most efficient oil crop because one can harvest five tonnes of oil per hectare. This is 10 times more productive than soya bean planted in the West, including United States and five times more productive than rapeseed, Europe’s main oil crop.

6.    It is an undeniable fact that palm oil is the cheapest and most popular form of cooking oil for consumers, including many poor families in the west. Should trade barriers to benefit rapeseed farmers who are already heavily subsidised by the European Union (EU) government be successfully implemented, this will hurt consumers all over the world.

7.    Also should alternatives to oil palm be grown, more land would be needed to produce an equivalent volume of oil to replace palm oil, resulting in more deforestation and problems for Mother Earth.

8.    Oil palm smallholdings and plantations meet the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change which defines a forest as an area of 0.5 to one hectare having more than 30 per cent canopy cover and having a potential height of two to five metres. To accuse the industry in Malaysia and Indonesia of contributing to global warming is sheer nonsense. In fact oil palm trees just as with other forest species, produce oxygen for us to breathe and act to counter coal and oil emissions which are the major cause of global warming.

9.    Finally, the western environmental activists’ campaign against oil palm plantation expansion, in the name of “saving rainforests”, is a violation of international norms and Malaysia’s and Indonesia’s sovereignty.

Conclusion: I trust all Malaysians will circulate this article to all their contacts to fight against the smear campaign against our palm oil industry and eventually I hope consumers, all over the world, will not buy soyabean or rapeseed oil which is more expensive and not really superior to palm oil.

 

 

 

 

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Discussions
4 people like this. Showing 15 of 15 comments

mukahmukah

Dear Mr. Koon,

I believe you have been approaching this matter on a wrong footing. Please take note that Wilmar is also an oil palm grower. Wilmar recognizes that while plantation development has contributed tremendously to economic development, deforestation and other unsustainable practices have many negative consequences for people and the environment. For that reason, I believe Wilmar is working closely with other growers , traders, processors, NGOs, end users and other stakeholders to protect forests, peatlands, human and community rights. To advance this industry transformation, Wilmar has decided on no deforestation such as no development of High Carbon Stock (HCS) Forests, no development of High Conservation Value (HCV) Area, no burning and progressively reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on existing plantations. Wilmar has also decided on no development on peat land regardless of depth and where possible or feasible, explore for peat restoration by working with expert stakeholders and communities.

Wilmar respects and supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Wilmar respects and recognize the rights of all workers including contract, temporary and migrant workers. Wilmar respects land tenure rights. Wilmar respects the rights of indigenous and local communities to give or withold their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) to operations on lands to which they hold legal, communal and customary rights.

2014-01-17 16:44

bsngpg

If China follows the "expectation/wants" of the developed countries who disguised behind the names of universal charity/human rights groups, China today is still in hard poor mud and labeled as "sick man of the east"東亞病夫。

2014-01-17 17:46

mukah

Dear bsnpg,

You may have to do a simple visit to a well informed library in order to bring yourself up to speed as to the development of modern China. Wilmar plays a major role in the development of oils and seeds industries in China. However, since you have mentioned China as the "sick man of the east", you might have referred yourself to the weak China before World War 2. You might also want to brighten up your mind with the development of China pre-revolution whereby the Empress of Dowager was in charge of the fate of China. Empress Dowager surrounded herself with yesmen and expect them to tickle her ears with things she wanted to hear. None of them dared to tell her the truth. For example, China lost the battle of Yaloo to Japan in 1894 despite having a well modernized armada vis-a-vis Japan. China was using ships made from Germany. However, the bombs and bullets were filled with sawdusts instead of gun powder as a result of extreme corruptions among their peers. Of course, the foreign powers took advantage of this.

2014-01-17 18:14

Chang Chiang

Mr. Koon ,
As a young investor who followed i3 closely, I am a supporter and reader of your postings and articles. Your sharings and teachings through your experiences are benefiting me and many people in this community. However, I strongly disagree that oil palm plantation is good and not harmful to nature, which are very important to our populations long term welfare ex specially the little ones which are innocents. I come from Kelantan, which are surrounded by quite some oil palm plantations, small and big ones. My relatives happened to own a few thousands acre of oil palm plantations too. I like to earn money from plantation stocks and I cannot stop my relatives from continuing their oil plantation business. But it is a lie to say that oil plantations aren't hurting the nature. The natives who one time lived there have to leave all their history of hundreds of year to a new place and system that is so strange yet to hard to them, animals loses their habitats and died, millions of plant of different species which lived after millions years of adjusting are replaced by just one type of tree, streams polluted, soil are polluted by the fertilizer and the pesticide used to control the weeds, and 15.5 percent of land area is just estimated, if we see from google maps, it is clearly seen that it is more then that. And will be more in the future. And that is just for oil palm, how about other activities? Like logging, mining, housing and etc, after minus all, how many more green land do we still have. All that cannot be bought with money in the future and we won't get the result ASAP as we might need. The other nations might not have good intentions but we need to think for our own sake and it is not about them bothering or not. And even if happened in the future the big nation still have brains and other resources to sort it out, what do we have then? Oil plantation makes good money but it is not good for long term, there are better options and priority than money. If our neighbors an island like Singapore, a waste land like South Korea can develop into such successful
economy without oil plantations we can too, in fact we should do better than them as we have advantages they do not. Money is important but it should be balanced with the welfare of the future little ones. I cannot imagine them living in a hell because what we do or do not do today.

2014-01-17 23:06

Ken Lim

The question is, will it be implemented? This new policy was launched at the same time as a deal between Wilmar and food and household products giant Unilever, which has its own target to only use traceable palm oil by the end of 2014. As more multinationals come under pressure to use less environmentally-damaging ingredients, the commercial benefits to Wilmar of appearing to be an environmental leader are clear.
However the company has frequently been accused of violating ethical standards that is has signed up to in the past – for example as a member of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) and recipient of funding from the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation(IFC). That means many groups with experience of the company’s track record are sceptical about this new commitment.

2014-01-18 00:58

Alfred Tay

Mr.koon, what effect on oil palm co.'s share price with this latest discrimination from Wilmar & unilever?Thks.

2014-01-18 10:29

Teck Wyn

mr koon you talk about national sovereignty as if you were a patriot but i find your dismissive attitude towards our natural heritage to be more like that of a traitor

2014-01-18 10:36

Gokula Krishnan

I am surprised on your support for the traitors of Sarawak. Having lived and studied there in university, that's an example of a warlord state where no one cares about heritage, environment or people. It's only money and profits. If these ruling means the demise, so be it. Those assohles should been out of business long time. I find it hard to believe 2m jobs are impacted and that too Malaysians impacting. That's a sugarcoat as we all know over 75% of plantation workers are foreigners. So such demise probably is good to stem money outflow. I think Wilmar is doing the right thing.

2014-01-19 12:13

Jemt Hwa

Mr Koon, I'm agreed with your points. But also lots of reader may misunderstand what Mr Koon try mention. We all know almost everything is harmful to the Earth. But the point is how we should use our land efficiently. Cooking oil is unavoidable needs, same as fuel. So what’s the point to stop planting palm while others still growing seeds oil and soya oil which are inefficient and expensive for consumer? For those who are against Mr Koon’s view or treating him as a traitor, I hope u all living very well in your little world with your little mind.

2014-01-19 16:08

Anthony James Saunders

Mr Koon, the palm oil that is being mostly discriminated against is that from unsustainably grown oil palms and the problems it is causing.

2014-02-13 02:15

Icon8888

Dear all, please ignore this tommy lim. He confessed before he is a newbie from a rich family. People like him don't understand the real world. That is why think and talk like a westerner who earn five figures per month (according to him, that is his salary)

2014-02-13 02:56

Icon8888

Tommy Lim
Stock: [PJDEV]: PJ DEVELOPMENT HOLDINGS BHD
Jan 2, 2014 09:28 AM | Report Abuse

Sepiroth, I come from rich family and now working for oil and gas company earning 6 figure salary. So money is not an issue. I only started playing shares and already made 30K out of 100K within 2 months. Not so much actually. I will hold PJDev then. Thank you.

2014-02-13 03:08

Icon8888

Tommy lim


Stock: [PJDEV]: PJ DEVELOPMENT HOLDINGS BHD
Jan 2, 2014 09:10 AM | Report Abuse

Sephiroth, I don't know anything about stock. I only follow whatever my remisier ask me to buy or sell. So I should hold? Thanks

2014-02-13 03:10

Icon8888

Hmmm tommy lim withdrew his post....

2014-02-13 03:17

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