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- Posted October 22, 2012 by
- DeforestatnW Follow
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Chicago, Illinois
More from DeforestatnW
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- Palm Oil and the Rainforest Action Network’s Web of Deceit
- Why Surrogate Green Groups like RAN Are Used by the European Commission To Attack Palm Oil
- The European Commission's attitude towards palm oil: Rules are made to be broken!
- Palm Oil: RAN, fact manipulation and dirty politics
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Palm Oil: The EU Commission’s moral failure in France will come back to bite it!
In the online publication 24/7 Wall St, an unusual list called The 100 Least Powerful People in the World was published recently. Among those selected were corporate executives, sports figures, politicians, and celebrities who shared one common characteristic—¬they used to be powerful. Some were victims of circumstances whilst others made poor business decisions. Yet others lost their influence because of moral failure!
At the rate that the European Commission (EC) is conducting itself on the palm oil issue, it will not be long before its lack of moral fiber on the matter comes back to bite it! Let’s examine how the EC came to shockingly take this low road!
Evidence has been emerging for some time that a carefully planned and coordinated series of subversive campaigns against palm oil are funded by the EC to protect their own homegrown edible oilseeds such as rapeseed and sunflower oil which are hapless against the rampantly high yielding palm oil in the open market.
In a paper entitled Taxpayer Funding, NGO Collusion and Manufactured Crises: A Case Study of Malaysia and Palm Oil, Italian think tank Libertiamo points out that since 2005, the EC has provided nearly 5million (MYR 19,7 million) to the World Wildlife Fund and 4 million (MYR 15,8 million) to Friends of the Earth. Climate Action Network (CAN) also received nearly 1 million (MYR 3.9 million) in the past two years alone.
Libertiamo noted that the palm oil campaigns are based on manufactured evidence and “the degree of conservation in many of these countries regularly exceeds those efforts in Europe, as well as other developed countries!”
Palm oil is grown on only 0.23% of the world's agricultural land and yet produces a staggering 30% of global edible oil output! This is due largely to the crop’s incredible inherent hyper yield characteristics.
A single hectare planted with oil palm has an average yield of 4-5 metric tons per hectare. Best in class plantations are already yielding 8 metric tons per hectare. However what has already sent shudders down the spine of the halls of power in the EC are two facts! First, the EU’s own indigenous edible oils’ yields are so miniscule as to make their competitiveness against palm oil almost non-existent, for rapeseed crops only yield an insignificant 0.67 metric tons and sunflower a paltry 0.53 metric tons per hectare! Secondly, both rapeseed and sunflower have just about reached their maximum genetic potential; in yield whilst palm oil’s has just begun. For instance, current R&D points to a maximum potential yield of 20 metric tons per hectare! That has certainly set the alarm bells ringing in the halls of power of the EC.
As pointed out by Libertiamo, the decision was made and the Environmental Directorate of the EC was selected to release surrogate green groups as attack dogs to rein in and take down the edible oil upstarts from the east, palm oil!
However factually challenged the anti- palm oil campaigns were, it has not stopped others such as the French manufacturers and retailers to fall over each other to exploit the issue and stick “Palm Oil Free” labels onto their products and declare that they are working to eliminate products made with palm oil from their inventory.
Their ignorance may be breathtaking, as any objective observer would have clued in on the real reasons for the strange assault on probably the most benign edible oilseed crop, environmentally speaking, but if any issue could be exploited for commercial gain, to hell with the morality behind the decision!
However, as history has shown time and again, the blood of the poor (in this case the poor palm oil smallholders who collectively produce a staggering 40% of global palm oil output) will eventually come back and taint the unscrupulous and ethically empty bureaucrats in the EC and corporate bigwigs and suits in the boardrooms who make these unethical and immoral decisions!
Note: Deforestation Watch aka Melbourne Zoo Watch was originally established to drive green issues on palm oil mainstream. However, Deforestation Watch has in the course of its existence evolved into Melbourne Zoo Watch and now considerable time and energy is spent on exposing the sly misdeeds and devious schemes of the Melbourne Zoo in using palm oil to surreptitiously raise funds for the zoo. www.deforestationwatch.org
At the rate that the European Commission (EC) is conducting itself on the palm oil issue, it will not be long before its lack of moral fiber on the matter comes back to bite it! Let’s examine how the EC came to shockingly take this low road!
Evidence has been emerging for some time that a carefully planned and coordinated series of subversive campaigns against palm oil are funded by the EC to protect their own homegrown edible oilseeds such as rapeseed and sunflower oil which are hapless against the rampantly high yielding palm oil in the open market.
In a paper entitled Taxpayer Funding, NGO Collusion and Manufactured Crises: A Case Study of Malaysia and Palm Oil, Italian think tank Libertiamo points out that since 2005, the EC has provided nearly 5million (MYR 19,7 million) to the World Wildlife Fund and 4 million (MYR 15,8 million) to Friends of the Earth. Climate Action Network (CAN) also received nearly 1 million (MYR 3.9 million) in the past two years alone.
Libertiamo noted that the palm oil campaigns are based on manufactured evidence and “the degree of conservation in many of these countries regularly exceeds those efforts in Europe, as well as other developed countries!”
Palm oil is grown on only 0.23% of the world's agricultural land and yet produces a staggering 30% of global edible oil output! This is due largely to the crop’s incredible inherent hyper yield characteristics.
A single hectare planted with oil palm has an average yield of 4-5 metric tons per hectare. Best in class plantations are already yielding 8 metric tons per hectare. However what has already sent shudders down the spine of the halls of power in the EC are two facts! First, the EU’s own indigenous edible oils’ yields are so miniscule as to make their competitiveness against palm oil almost non-existent, for rapeseed crops only yield an insignificant 0.67 metric tons and sunflower a paltry 0.53 metric tons per hectare! Secondly, both rapeseed and sunflower have just about reached their maximum genetic potential; in yield whilst palm oil’s has just begun. For instance, current R&D points to a maximum potential yield of 20 metric tons per hectare! That has certainly set the alarm bells ringing in the halls of power of the EC.
As pointed out by Libertiamo, the decision was made and the Environmental Directorate of the EC was selected to release surrogate green groups as attack dogs to rein in and take down the edible oil upstarts from the east, palm oil!
However factually challenged the anti- palm oil campaigns were, it has not stopped others such as the French manufacturers and retailers to fall over each other to exploit the issue and stick “Palm Oil Free” labels onto their products and declare that they are working to eliminate products made with palm oil from their inventory.
Their ignorance may be breathtaking, as any objective observer would have clued in on the real reasons for the strange assault on probably the most benign edible oilseed crop, environmentally speaking, but if any issue could be exploited for commercial gain, to hell with the morality behind the decision!
However, as history has shown time and again, the blood of the poor (in this case the poor palm oil smallholders who collectively produce a staggering 40% of global palm oil output) will eventually come back and taint the unscrupulous and ethically empty bureaucrats in the EC and corporate bigwigs and suits in the boardrooms who make these unethical and immoral decisions!
Note: Deforestation Watch aka Melbourne Zoo Watch was originally established to drive green issues on palm oil mainstream. However, Deforestation Watch has in the course of its existence evolved into Melbourne Zoo Watch and now considerable time and energy is spent on exposing the sly misdeeds and devious schemes of the Melbourne Zoo in using palm oil to surreptitiously raise funds for the zoo. www.deforestationwatch.org
- TAGS:
- palm,
- palmhugger,
- oil,
- hugger
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