Angry farmers despair at what will happen to their livelihoods when the Brussels
biofuels ban takes effect in 2020


Malaysian palm oil farmers Nur Harun Muhammad and Nodin Bin Ramli. Photograph: Sudheer Kaali

n the small farming settlement of Palong in rural Malaysia, the EU is a dirty word. A few
months ago, these men – mostly in their sixties, their skin brown and weathered from years
working the land – had never even heard of the European parliament: but now their
livelihoods are at risk because of it.

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The crop they harvest is palm oil, one of Malaysia’s biggest exports worth $20bn a year. The
European Parliament has voted overwhelmingly to ban the use of palm oil in all European
biofuels by 2020, citing environmental concerns. If it is approved by the European Commission,
the impact on the 650,000 smallholder palm farmers in Malaysia will be devastating.

“I have spent all my money on the palm oil farm, I have recently planted new trees that will

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last for the next 25 years, and my whole family relies on this. It’s how my kids afford to study,”
said Hussain Mohamed, 66, who has had his 10-acre plantation for over 30 years, and supports
his entire family on the income.

“Our whole community here totally depends on palm oil. But now we hear about the EU biofuel
ban and this came as a shock to us, we still do not understand it and everybody is scared of what

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is going to happen to us in two years’ time. We have all signed petitions,” he said.

Shaking his head angrily, he said the uncertainty had already affected the selling price of palm
oil. “I am proud of my farm, I really take care of the trees every day. How can they say I am bad
for the environment?”

In the past few years, campaigners have gathered mountains of damning evidence that the

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growing demand for palm oil from the EU and China has fuelled massive illegal deforestation in
Indonesia and Malaysia by governments and big corporations, forcing several species to the brink
of extinction.

"It’s the same colonial attitudes, the white man imposing their
rule on us from afar."

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Yet for Malaysia’s smallholder farmers, many of whom were rescued from poverty when the
government’s land authority, Felda, gave them 10 acres of land to harvest palm oil in the 80s, the
allegations of environmental destruction are baffling. They account for 40% of Malaysia’s palm oil
output and yet none engage in any land-grabbing, the slash and burn or deforestation practices
that were pivotal proponents for MEPs voting to ban palm oil in biofuels.

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Lehan Samiran, 62, who has had his 10 acres since 1981, shook his fists angrily. He has three
children in university who are all supported by the income from his palm oil farm. “Why are the
EU doing this to us?” he said. “They have not thought about the farmers, about the human price.
The statement ignored us. They are so far away they do not care. We are not harming the
environment, we are looking after it. I am very angry, everybody is very angry. How can we not

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be, this will affect our rice bowl.”


Workers collect palm oil fruit in Sepang, outside Kuala Lumpur. Photograph: Samsul Said/Reuters

The EU is Malaysia’s third biggest palm oil customer, and much of it is imported to make biofuels.
The farmers and Felda also fear the resolution would be just the first step towards banning palm
oil outright in the EU. Iceland supermarket has already said it will not use palm oil in its own-
brand goods.

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The proposed ban in biofuels, which is part of a revision of the EU’s renewables directives, has
already prompted the rumblings of an international trade dispute, with Malaysia and Indonesia
threatening retaliatory sanctions against EU goods in response, and Malaysia reportedly
threatened to cancel defence contracts worth £5bn if the UK backed a palm oil ban in Brussels.

MEP Kateřina Konečná, who was the first to bring the motion to ban palm oil to the European

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parliament said that while she understood the plight of the small farmers, “these smallholders
are a slice of big national and international corporations who are responsible for deforestation.”

But a spokesperson for Felda, questioned why palm oil had been singled out over other vegetable
oils used to make biofuels - many of which, like rapeseed, are grown in EU countries - calling it
“crop apartheid” and condemned the EU for disregarding “the hundreds of thousands of lives it

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will destroy”.

“It’s the same colonial attitudes, the white man imposing their rule on us from afar.” he said.
“If the EU respect Malaysia as a sovereign country and as a partner in development and trade,
they should not put this unfair restriction on us, and instead work with us on environmental
concerns. Freezing us out is wrong.”

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He was echoed by Dato’ Haji Aliasak Bin Haji Ambia, the President of the National Association
of Small Holders Malaysia. “Palm oil has allowed the rural poor in Malaysia to develop our own
land, lift ourselves and our families out of poverty, and take control of our own economic destiny,”
he said.

With the Malaysian election coming up on 9 May, this is also a pivotal issue. Felda farmers are a

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key support base for the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, and prime minister Najib Razak has
made promising to defend palm oil one of the talking points of his campaign.

Greenpeace this week published further evidence that palm oil has driven further forest clearance
in Papua, Indonesia, tainting its reputation further. Yet a ban does not necessarily solve the
environmental problems.

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The market for biodiesel in the EU is still growing, with a large percentage currently made from
palm oil. Should the ban be implemented, other vegetable oils will have to be be used in its place,
such as soybean oil, which has also been proved to be environmentally destructive, responsible for
mass deforestation of the Amazon rainforest.

While oil palms occupy 9.2 million hectares of agricultural land and produce 31.8% of global oils,

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the soybean and rapeseed crops would require 10 times this amount of land to produce the same
yield.

There are also wider political ramifications of the EU ban. Banning palm oil in biofuels is likely to
also weaken the EU’s influence in southeast Asia, and hand even more more power to China – the
biggest palm oil customer in the world – at a time when the EU has expressed concern about

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increasing Chinese domination of the region.

But for the country’s farmers, this is simply about sustaining the food in their rice bowls. Nur Harun
Muhammad, 64, stood among the palms that he has tended to every day for the past 35 years
and smiled widely.

“See, not poison, not bad,” Nur said, showing off the bright yellow palm oil that had oozed out

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onto his hands. “When you go back to England please, please tell them palm oil is good.”

FOOD security is a major concern throughout the world with global population now exceeding
seven billion. Coupled with the increasing per capita food consumption worldwide, it is
understandable that many countries are anxious about having enough food to meet their
growing demand.

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As countries become more developed and purchasing power increases, not only would the
demand for growing food change, so also would the people’s diet preferences.

Studies have shown that when people have more money at their disposal, their intake of meat
products also rises. It has also been shown that in more developed economies like the United
States and European Union, food consumption may be more than three to five times that in

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developing economies. China is a clear example of a country which has witnessed a dramatic
increase in the per capita intake of meat as the economy expands.

The growing demand for meat proteins has also translated into an expanding demand for
animal feed. In the last decade or so, the world has witnessed a large expansion in the
cultivation of such major feed crops, especially soybean and corn. Large tracts of land

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have been cleared to grow these crops.

Take, for example, the expansion of land for soybean farming in Brazil and Argentina. Many
have expressed outrage since much of the expansion has encroached into sensitive forest areas
where environmentalists are also concerned about loss of biodiversity and reduction in the global
sinks for greenhouse gases.

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Along with the expansion in soybean farming, large areas are also cleared to support livestock
farming, especially cattle, which present another problem. Methane gas from the metabolic habits
of cattle and other livestock complicates the global effort to reverse climate change. At 21 times
more potent than carbon dioxide, methane is more devastating as a greenhouse gas.

Similar expansion in the livestock business is also being seen in the US and China.

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However, the global warming potential of the livestock industry has not attracted as much
attention as the misguided environmental perception on palm oil. This is explained by some as
the developed versus developing country syndrome. Palm oil is a product of only developing
nations, especially Malaysia and Indonesia, while the livestock business is also massive among
the developed economies, especially the US. Palm oil is therefore regarded as a much easier

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target to pick a fight with.

But this is where the critics of palm oil are very much mistaken. Looking at the many credentials
of palm oil, we should actually be grateful for this unique product of nature. Palm oil is
truly nature’s gift to the world.

Firstly, it is clear that the world is running short of arable land to grow food. At the same time,

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the global food demand continues to rise, driven by the growth in population as well as better
purchasing power among world consumers. It would therefore be in the global interest to plant
food crops with higher yields on the limited land available.

In the edible oil crops category, no other oil can match the high productivity of palm oil, which is
almost 10 times higher.

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Secondly, unlike the other competing oil crops, oil palm is a perennial whereas the others are
all annuals. Annual crops such as soybean, sunflower and rapeseed disturb the soils more.
This means that in order to restore the virility of the soils, massive amounts of chemical
fertilisers have to be deployed. And we all know this is environmentally unhealthy.

Oil palm, on the other hand, is the closest one can get to the natural forest. Once planted, the

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land remains undisturbed for at least the next 25 years after which it will be due for replanting.

Add these to the fact that oil palm is the only oil crop which gives two different oils, palm oil and
palm kernel oil, and it helps cushion the global oil prices, many wonder why some are still critical
of this wonderful oil.

By right, the entire humanity should be grateful for having palm oil. It is a clear example of a crop

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which can help us overcome the global food security issue. We should stop ridiculing palm oil!

PROFESSOR DATUK DR AHMAD IBRAHIM

Fellow Academy of Sciences Malaysia

UCSI University