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Palm oil and the human costs of the European Commission’s shenanigans and acts of subterfuge!
Sitting through a TV documentary on World War 1, I hear the narrator say that if Britain’s casualties in “the war to end all wars” were marched four abreast past London’s war monument, the processional would take 7 days to complete. This staggering word picture set my mind spinning at the awful cost of war. While those costs include monetary expense, destruction of property, and economic interruption, none of these compare to the human cost. Both soldiers and civilians pay the ultimate price, multiplied exponentially by the grief of the survivors.
Yet when I juxtapose this against the human costs of the spurious actions of the Directorate Environment of the European Commission (EC) in funding anti-palm oil campaigns by appointed surrogate green groups, they are potentially just as staggering! For contrary to popular opinion, 40per cent of global palm oil cultivation is carried out by smallholders.
The saddest part of this unsavory affair is the fact that most of these smallholders came into palm oil cultivation by participating in successful government sponsored rural poverty eradication programs that have given these smallholders a glimmer of hope for a stab at a decent livelihood such as putting food on the table and giving their children the opportunity to pursue higher education, stuff that people in the developed west take for granted.
Even sadder is the fact that the EC is fully aware that the anti-palm oil campaigns are based on “manufactured” and false evidence creatively concocted by the EC green group surrogates (see Libertiamo: “Taxpayer funding, NGO Collusion and Manufactured Crisis” in http://disarmingthegreens.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Taxpayer-Funding-NGO-Collusion-and-Manufactured-Crises.pdf)
Sadder still is the fact, as pointed out in Libertiamo’s very incisive expose, that although these anti-palm oil campaigns were publicly touted and ostensibly funded to encourage healthy environmental practices in the developing world, the reality is far removed from that! In truth, says Libertiamo, these palm oil campaigns were really designed by the EC to hold back the rampantly market sweeping and incredibly hyper yielding palm oil to protect the EU’s own indigenous edible oilseed industries such as rape and sunflower oils which were unable to face the market onslaught of palm oil in the open market!
How hyper yielding? It is clear that one hectare planted with palm oil yields 4-5 metric tons of edible oil. That's just an average. Best in class plantations are producing 8 metric tons per hectare and current R&D points to a staggering genetic potential of 20 metric tons per hectare! (see: http://www.simedarbyplantation.com/upload/palmoilfactsandfigures.pdf)
By comparison, soy, sunflower and rapeseed have reached their genetic limit and soy only produce a mere 0.37, sunflower a meagre 0.57 and rapeseed a laughable 0.69 metric tons per hectare!
Perhaps that is why the European Commission should fear palm oil so much as to take the low road and resort to subterfuge by funding these anti-palm oil campaigns using "manufactured" and false evidence? Don't rule out journalists being hoodwinked by these false evidence too!
Just consider what would happen if palm oil plantations were to be converted to soy or sunflower (they could and quite easily too!). It would then be truly disastrous and an Armageddon of forest destruction!
In any event, however you should choose to slice it, the human costs of this misguided action on the part of the European Commission is immense, felt to a lesser extent by the multi-national corporations who use palm oil for its only too easy for them to tighten their supply chains to buy only RSPO certified sustainable palm oil, but probably the smallholders who depend on the commodity for their livelihood!
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
Yet when I juxtapose this against the human costs of the spurious actions of the Directorate Environment of the European Commission (EC) in funding anti-palm oil campaigns by appointed surrogate green groups, they are potentially just as staggering! For contrary to popular opinion, 40per cent of global palm oil cultivation is carried out by smallholders.
The saddest part of this unsavory affair is the fact that most of these smallholders came into palm oil cultivation by participating in successful government sponsored rural poverty eradication programs that have given these smallholders a glimmer of hope for a stab at a decent livelihood such as putting food on the table and giving their children the opportunity to pursue higher education, stuff that people in the developed west take for granted.
Even sadder is the fact that the EC is fully aware that the anti-palm oil campaigns are based on “manufactured” and false evidence creatively concocted by the EC green group surrogates (see Libertiamo: “Taxpayer funding, NGO Collusion and Manufactured Crisis” in http://disarmingthegreens.it/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Taxpayer-Funding-NGO-Collusion-and-Manufactured-Crises.pdf)
Sadder still is the fact, as pointed out in Libertiamo’s very incisive expose, that although these anti-palm oil campaigns were publicly touted and ostensibly funded to encourage healthy environmental practices in the developing world, the reality is far removed from that! In truth, says Libertiamo, these palm oil campaigns were really designed by the EC to hold back the rampantly market sweeping and incredibly hyper yielding palm oil to protect the EU’s own indigenous edible oilseed industries such as rape and sunflower oils which were unable to face the market onslaught of palm oil in the open market!
How hyper yielding? It is clear that one hectare planted with palm oil yields 4-5 metric tons of edible oil. That's just an average. Best in class plantations are producing 8 metric tons per hectare and current R&D points to a staggering genetic potential of 20 metric tons per hectare! (see: http://www.simedarbyplantation.com/upload/palmoilfactsandfigures.pdf)
By comparison, soy, sunflower and rapeseed have reached their genetic limit and soy only produce a mere 0.37, sunflower a meagre 0.57 and rapeseed a laughable 0.69 metric tons per hectare!
Perhaps that is why the European Commission should fear palm oil so much as to take the low road and resort to subterfuge by funding these anti-palm oil campaigns using "manufactured" and false evidence? Don't rule out journalists being hoodwinked by these false evidence too!
Just consider what would happen if palm oil plantations were to be converted to soy or sunflower (they could and quite easily too!). It would then be truly disastrous and an Armageddon of forest destruction!
In any event, however you should choose to slice it, the human costs of this misguided action on the part of the European Commission is immense, felt to a lesser extent by the multi-national corporations who use palm oil for its only too easy for them to tighten their supply chains to buy only RSPO certified sustainable palm oil, but probably the smallholders who depend on the commodity for their livelihood!
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:
- hugger,
- oil,
- palm,
- palmhugger
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