The use of oil palm in everyday live is likely to be criticized because it is perceived not environmental friendly. On the other hand, derivative products from palm oil which are usually found in food and cosmetics have been widely used by more than half of the world population.
The high intense criticisms from both national and international environmental activists towards palm oil often influence public’s views on the benefits and superior value of this vegetable oil.
The polemic that hits one of the Indonesia’s largest economic contributors is due to deforestation and land clearing for oil palm plantations, threat to endangered protected species, pressure on buyers of palm oil products and derivatives, and public call to boycott palm products. The discussion on oil palm was also brought up to the international trade forum.
Early this year, in the Annual World Economic Forum (WEF) 2020 meetings in Davos-Switzerland, Indonesia Government proposed a scheme to implement carbon credit and the use of palm oil for development.
In the meeting the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Airlangga Hartarto asked stakeholders to look at the palm oil industry holistically, from the environmental, economic aspects, contributions to global development, business perspectives, to the policies taken by the Government of Indonesia. The 2018 World Oil Report mentioned, the total area of global vegetable oil producers, including sunflower, soybean, cotton seeds, palm oil, rapeseed seeds and other crops, is 290,000 hectares (ha) with vegetable oil production of 221 million tons. Of the total area, oil palm only uses 7 percent of land, soybeans 43 percent, cotton seeds 12 percent , rapeseed seeds 11 percent, sunflower 9 percent and other vegetable oil plants 20 percent.
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