KUCHING: Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners’ Association (SOPPOA) strongly disagrees with the position taken on the issue of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions.
The counter statement was made in response to Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) secretary general Darrel Webber’s earlier statement on strategy to tackle GHG emissions published in a newspaper on April 22.
“While praising the ‘…significantly large representation of Malaysian growers at these review meetings…’ Webber surprisingly failed to disclose that despite all these growers’ representatives being present, their views were not adopted or considered in the larger picture of the oil palm industry,” said the statement from SOPPOA yesterday.
In fact, it said due to these objections from growers, the P&C Review resulted in extending the meetings to four from the original two, which discussed GHG emissions and new planting guidelines.
“Significantly, what all these mean is that palm oil becomes less competitive against other oils and agricultural sectors like food crops and animal breeding,” it said.
Furthermore, palm oil faces invisible trade barriers imposed by EU, USA and other governments through various legislations like EU- REDD and RFS2.
Until and when all these other agricultural sectors agree to and adopt similar GHG guidelines for their products, should RSPO even consider the inclusion of GHG emissions into the Principles and Criteria.
Due to the inclusion of GHG factor, palm oil now comes under greater pressure like labelling campaigns from WENGOs, which makes it increasingly more urgent for alternative national standards like the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) and Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) to be adopted.
Basically, RSPO is putting the horse before the cart in adopting and imposing GHG emissions on the palm oil industry as there is currently no urgency to adopt these criteria by the other agricultural sectors.
“Why unnecessarily burdening yourself when there is no need to, and explain why there is no rush in the international market to embrace palm oil for this undertaking. Currently, CSPO (Certified Sustainable Palm Oil) uptake has stagnated and big players in the international market have not committed themselves to buy large quantities of CSPO or unwilling to pay premiums demanded by growers leading to oversupply of CSPO,” added the statement.
“So Webber and RSPO, the truth is that the current strategy of including GHG in the Principles and Criteria is not in the best interest of the oil palm industry, creates an invisible trade barrier, increases cost to palm oil producers and limiting market accessibility while making it into a not level playing field for everyone.
“Seriously, what burdens of proof can you or RSPO show that the other agricultural sectors are all that interested and eager to include GHG into their basket of conditions for the international market?”
In terms of strategy, this GHG adoption by RSPO is very well misplaced and indicative of its stance in not listening to the concerns of growers in the organisation.
“Somehow, the science and logic of the adoption is beyond the comprehension of growers and the international market while at the same time earning RSPO a laugh behind their back by the other agricultural sectors,” said the statement.
Taken from The Borneo Post
