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The Primary Industries Ministry will work with the Sarawak government and Dayak Oil Palm Planters Association (Doppa) to push for Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification throughout the state.
This is part of efforts to get all oil palm areas in the country certified by the end of next year, minister Teresa Kok said.
“Doppa members are mainly very experienced professionals in oil palm plantations. We need to seek their help to go into the interior areas to reach out to smallholders and explain to them the importance of MSPO certification.
“They are willing to do that,” she told reporters after a meeting with the association here yesterday.
Kok said as at Oct 31, 359,810ha or 24.4% of the total oil palm planted area in Sarawak had received MPSO certification.
At national level, 22% or 1.26mil ha of the total planted area of 5.8mil ha are MSPO-certified.
“This is still not enough. As we want to push for 100% certification by the end of 2019, we need the cooperation of all NGOs and the state government to work together with my ministry in order to achieve that,” she said.
According to Kok, MSPO certification would help Malaysian palm oil to be accepted in more countries around the world.
“The idea of MSPO is that we want to show the world that our oil palm estates and growers have good agricultural practices and that our palm oil will have traceability in future. We want to make Malaysian palm oil the five-star oil in the international market. We hope that through certifying all our oil palm plantations and the whole value chain of the palm oil industry, we can brand Malaysian palm oil with a better image,” she said.
Kok also said her ministry was exploring new markets for palm oil, including the Philippines and countries in northern Africa and the Middle East.
She said India is currently the biggest importer of Malaysian palm oil, followed by the European Union and China.
Source: The Star Online