KUCHING: The Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (Soppoa) calls for industry players to continue supporting the government’s plan to continue planting oil palm on areas allocated for oil palm development.
“Sarawak oil palm industry is about the livelihood and wellbeing of the people. Oil palm is one of the most impactful economy drivers in Malaysia, and a very successful poverty eradication programme for the people in Sarawak,” it said in a statement to the press.
“The Sarawak government has allocated land specifically for agriculture development including farming and oil palm planting under the Sarawak land use policy.”
The land earmarked can be NCR areas, logged over forest converted for agriculture purpose, whether in peat or mineral areas, Soppoa noted.
The association believes that every country has the sovereign right to use their land for sustainable agriculture. Like developed countries in EU and US, lands are cleared for big scale farming of soya bean, corn, sunflower, rape seed, cattle farming and many other big scale farming.
“For most developed countries, between 40 to 60 per cent of their land are used for agriculture. In Europe, countries like Germany use 48 per cent of land for agriculture, UK (70 per cent), Denmark (61 per cent), Netherlands (60 per cent) while Malaysia’s is 23 per cent,” it
explained.
“We believe that the principle of people, planet and profit should be approached with balance. The extreme of any one of the aspects of the three principles will have unwanted effects on others.
“The people in Sarawak, whose income are many times lower than people in EU, US and developed nations, should be given an opportunity to survive in this unfair society of our modern world.”
Soppoa said for many in Sarawak, land is the only resource that can bring up the livelihood and standard of living as more than 300,000 people depend on oil palm industry to provide jobs, infrastructure and amenities. Landowners can participate in the oil palm development promoted by the government under the NCR scheme.
“Therefore, it is not about issue of peat land or conversion of logged over forest for oil palm, it is all about the wellbeing of people of Sarawak, Malaysia and the developing nation,” it affirmed.
“In Sarawak, the people want to have the same facilities, enjoyment and standard of living as the developed nations. Unfortunately some organisations are oppressing the people in this part of the world by dictating terms for developing countries on how they should use their land in the name of environment.
“Soppoa calls for people around the world to look at the issue from the perspective of human compassion.”
Taken from The Borneo Post
