PALMOILMAGAZINE, KUALA LUMPUR – The Government of Malaysia is set to accelerate efforts to help smallholders comply with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which will take effect on December 30, 2024. The regulation will prohibit the import of commodities like palm oil linked to deforestation into EU countries. Malaysia’s Minister of Plantation and Commodities, Johari Abdul Ghani, announced this on Friday.
The EUDR requires companies selling products such as soybeans, beef, and palm oil to ensure that their supply chains do not contribute to deforestation. Additionally, European companies are barred from importing products grown in deforested areas.
Malaysia and Indonesia, which together account for 85% of global palm oil exports, have criticized the EUDR, calling it discriminatory and unfairly targeting the palm oil industry. Johari Abdul Ghani highlighted that Malaysia has already implemented a sustainability standard through a certification scheme for its palm oil industry.
Also Read: Sustainability Spotlight: Indonesian Palm Oil Production After EUDR
With about 450,000 smallholders contributing 27% of Malaysia’s total palm oil production, the government is now focused on developing initiatives to support their transition to meet EUDR compliance.
“This is the significant thing to make sure that the smallholders’ source of living would not have issue from the regulation,” he said, as Palmoilmagazine.com quoted from Reuters even though he did not deliver the detail about the initiative.
The Government of Malaysia would find out the traceability of the products, the obedience to obey free-deforestation principles, the legal area ownership, the labors’ practices to confirm their sustainability.
By the early of this month, Malaysian Palm Oil Board urged European Union to postpone EUDR implementation by saying that it would be negative for the smallholders. The country also emphasized that every party wanted to get and conduct fair trade.
But European Union rejected it by saying that the regulation would be the need to make sure that European Block did not contribute to the forest damages whole over the world. European Union remained in its position to implement the regulation as it was scheduled. (P2)
