LATELY, the debate has grown louder over the discriminatory nature of the European Union's (EU) default values for biofuels especially on imported biofuel feedstocks like palm oil and soybean oil.
The latest is Canada's former ambassador to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) John Weekes, who said the EU would likely face WTO challenges on the matter of foreign energy sources disrimination.
He pointed out that the EU's default value calculations make a level playing field between the EU and non-EU producers impossible, and that its process of default value is a trade barrier deliberately designed to keep the competition out.
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I love the sight of cows lying in the field, chewing their cud. But what is cud? And why do they spend so much time chewing it?
Cows first fill their stomachs with grass and other food. Then they settle down for a good long chew. They bring the food back up from their stomachs and rework what they’ve already eaten, assimilating its goodness and transforming it into rich creamy milk. Time-consuming? Yes. A waste of time? Not if they want to give good milk.
In the same way,isn't it about time that the international media spend some time “chewing the cud” on the issue of the spurious palm oil campaigns launched by an entire cabal of “green” and “civil society” groups like such as the oddly named Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth (FOE), the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), the WWF and even zoos such as, wait for this… the Melbourne Zoo, the Auckland Zoo and the Philly Zoo?
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Sabah launched, Monday, three five-year State Species Action Plans for the orang-utan, the Borneo Pygmy Elephant and the rhinoceros, respectively, that will provide a platform for better protection of the three flagship species.
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THE virtues of oil from olives, sunflower seeds, canola, soybean and corn are familiar to consumers in the West and the affluent countries of the Middle East and North Africa. That's not the case with palm oil, even in those large markets for the product.
That may be a vestige of the bitter attack on the palm oil industry mounted in the 1980s by the soybean lobby, complete with self-serving claims that palm oil could harm human health. Malaysian scientists, including Tan Sri Augustine S.H. Ong, then attached to the Palm Oil Research Institute of Malaysia, countered with authoritative documentation that, in addition to its numerous industrial uses, palm oil is indeed a versatile, nutritious ingredient.
Now, the palm oil industry is once again confronted with new challenges, possibly more formidable and multi-faceted than the earlier one -- that of the need to be environmentally sustainable.
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