THE Primary Industries Ministry and palm oil bodies are hunting down the owners of a few hundred estates who they fear could derail the country’s plan to achieve 100% sustainable certification this year.

Minister Teresa Kok said the owners of these estates, measuring between 100ha and 1,000ha, are the ministry’s biggest obstacle to hitting the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification target.

“They don’t live on the estates, they don’t manage the estates.

“They leave the farming to contractors. We have problems looking for them. We just can’t find them.

“These people are letting us down. That’s why we are chasing them now,” she told a press conference after a dialogue with Sarawak oil palm planters and industry players in Kuching today.

She said the ministry and related agencies, including the Malaysian Palm Oil Certification Council and Malaysian Palm Oil Board, are working in “overdrive” as only 36% of the nation’s 5.85 million hectares of oil palm plantations had been certified as of May 31.

Without the MSPO certification, she said, Malaysian palm oil will not get a better price, or access to major markets like Europe.

European countries, including Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Britain, Italy and France, are demanding the private sector’s commitment to a fully sustainable palm oil supply chain by next year, including putting a stop to deforestation to make way for oil palm plantations.

The MSPO certification started on a voluntary basis in 2013. In 2017, however, the ministry realised that the deadline might not be met, and made it mandatory.

“The government has promised the international community and buyers that by the end of the year, we are going to achieve 100% certification,” said Kok.

“I don’t intend to change that.”

Sarawak Deputy Chief Minister Douglas Uggah Embas said the state will give full cooperation to ensure all issues standing in the way of the certification goal are dealt with.

The former plantation industries and commodities minister said Sarawak has received 10,000 applications for certification from smallholders, adding that they will get it within two weeks. – July 3, 2019.