PRIMARY Industries Minister Teresa Kok says it is unfair for the European Commission (EC) to single out palm oil as a high indirect land-use change (ILUC) risk and soy as a low ILUC change risk.

According to Kok, what the EC means is that planting palm trees will change the nature of the land.

“That means you are going to chop down more trees. We are not happy. How can the EC consider soy a low ILUC risk but palm oil a high ILUC risk?” she said to reporters after making a courtesy call on Chief Minister Abang Johari Tun Openg in Kuching today.

She said the EC wants to phase out palm oil from the EU market, especially in the biodiesel sector, to reduce deforestation because palm oil will cause land use to change.

“We think this is unfair. We have presented our country’s position to the EC. We hope they will consider Malaysia’s position because we are the second largest palm oil producing country,” she said.

Kok said the EC will table a delegated act in the European Parliament next month that aims to restrict and ban palm oil biofuel in the EU by 2030.

According to Kok, the ministry’s experts are still in Europe and in the process of justifying the case for palm oil via its scientific findings to the EC.

“My ministry has already sent a delegation to argue over methodology of the delegated act,” she said.

Kok said that as Sarawak has the most land set for oil palm, her team is holding discussions on how to handle this issue and develop suitable strategies.

“One of the initiatives we want to implement is the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil certification.

“It is a certification to show the sustainability of our palm oil. We want to tell the world that Malaysia’s palm oil comes from sustainable planting sources, and is planted according to good agricultural practices,” she said. – Bernama, March 13, 2019.