The undeclared war between edible oil producers

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Malaysia is in an undeclared war with Western edible oil producers. Yes. It is true. It is a war between palm oil and soybean oil. It has been going on for years but it is starting to get pretty nasty.

Over the years, we have heard accusations hurled at Malaysia that the palm oil is unhealthy. Fortunately we have proven it otherwise. Then there was the accusation that the palm oil industry is the single biggest culprit for deforestation. Once again, we proved that 80% of our country is still covered with forest whereas in America only 5%. The great American plain forest have all been cleared for wheat farming.

Recently, they have started to paste notices in Australian zoos that Malaysia's palm oil industry is killing off the Orang Utans. They have already targeted big corporations such as IOI as well as big users such as Nestle to encourage consumers from boycotting these companies' products.

So, who is funding this unhealthy movement? It has to be the alternative edible oil movements in Western countries. The motive? Purely commercial. Even the timber lobby in the Western countries are also part of the grand plan to kill off our homegrown industry.

Do you know how best for us to counter this movement? Use our product, promote it and above all, research on alternative usage of such ingredient in other products. Mind you, palm oil have a number of advantages from other oils which are:

1. It is a tree, hence promote much better carbon sequestering when compared to the small soybean plant;
2. Fruits all year long i.e. not seasonal like soybean;
3. Plant only once and it can fruit for 100 years (in reality, they are in the same family as the coconut tree i.e. can grown very tall) whereas soybean are like padi or wheat which requires planting every time; and
4. Every part of the tree can be used either to make paper to building materials.