PALMOILMAGAZINE, JAKARTA – In order to promote the importance of implementing sustainable practices in the production of palm oil, the industry has embraced sustainability principles. This can be seen through the establishment of various standards by palm oil-producing countries, including the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) and Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) standards.
Additionally, India, as one of the largest consumers of palm oil, has also introduced the Indian Palm Oil Sustainability Framework (IPOS) to encourage sustainable palm oil trade. These initiatives serve as evidence of the industry’s commitment to sustainability.
Unfortunately, these are not taken to qualify standards of sustainability, for instance, in the recent days, European Union published European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). It is a regulation draft that obliges due diligence for seven agricultural and forestry commodities, including palm oil.
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This is about to deliver evidences that the products to be sold or traded in the continent should be free from deforestation. The fact showed that EUDR would be a loss for independent smallholders in Indonesia and Malaysia because they, particularly in Indonesia, contributed less than 40% of available palm oil plantations.
By publishing the regulation, European Union hoped to get area location, and cluster system in every producer country within high risks, standard, and low risk.
Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) though that EUDR is stigmatizing and discriminative.
EUDR is considered as if (the countries in Europe) underestimated what palm oil producer countries have committed to accomplish every issue about climate change, natural conservation protection, as the agreement in Paris Agreement. Meanwhile the members of CPOPC closely implement many policies in forest conservation that successfully minimize deforestation and forest cut.
As the serious will from palm oil producers, CPOPC took Solidaridad Asia to get smallholders’ plantations sustainable.
General Secretary of CPOPC, Rizal Affandi Lukman said the cooperation would reflect partnership between the two organization particularly to promote fore major sectors, such as, the first, delivering the best practices for smallholders; the second, developing standard infrastructures sustainably; the third, encouraging environmental policy(ies).
“And the fourth, getting the same communication,” Rizal said when delivering his speech in the signing of Memorandum of Understanding between CPOPC and Solidaridad Asia in Jakarta that Palmoilmagazine.com attended, Thursday (6/7/2023).
He also told Solidaridad has been the partner for palm oil producers and it needs to reinforce concerning that negative and black campaigns about palm oil never stop.
“Palm oil sector always faces discriminative policies, such as, EUDR that could raise obstacles to market access and burden the producer while putting smallholders aside from the supply chain,” he said.
Meanwhile Deputy Coordinator Minister in Food and Agribusiness Coordination, Coordinator Ministry in Economy, Musdhalifah Machmud said, the cooperation is a good thing for other countries to inform about sustainable palm oil practices.
“We have to fight for and keep delivering positive campaigns about palm oil from Indonesia. We should not always wait but do now. The cooperation would be the same spirit for palm oil in the world,” she said. (T2)
