Vicarious Attacks on Palm Oil

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by: Palm Hugger
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Word Count: 515
Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2010 Time: 3:52 AM
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Over dinner, Karen who works in a preschool told me what had happened in school that day. A 4 year old girl had to be hauled up and asked if she knew she had done wrong. She explained, "I was angry with another boy. But you told me that I should not hit anyone, so I asked my friend to do it!"

How apt, when we apply this to the concerted and well coordinated attacks by green groups against palm oil.

What is, perhaps, the most startling and sinister aspect of Greenpeace and FOE's agitation against palm oil is the recent revelation by researchers Caroline Boin and Andrea Marchesetti in a well researched report entitled "Friends of the EU" (see: http://www.policynetwork.net/accountability/publication/friends-eu) which exposed that the EU, through its environmental ministries and commissions is involved in funding up to 70% of the operating budgets of environmental NGOs is a dead giveaway that the real reasons for these baffling attacks is to protect oilseed crops like rapeseed and sunflower which are indigenous to the EU.

It is inarguable that these EU oilseeds would find it difficult to compete on a level playing field, with "the cheapest oilseed crop in the world" especially in the production of biofuel, the use of which the EU has committed itself to promoting!

The palm oil industry could be forgiven for thinking that there must be a conspiracy to stop the growth of the "world's cheapest cooking oil" which is also inherently the most sustainable of oilseeds on account of its sheer productivity and yield that dwarfs it competitors such as rapeseed, soy and sunflower!

However, truth has funny way of coming out eventually! A recent report by James M. Roberts, Research Fellow for Economic Freedom and Growth in The Heritage Foundation's Center for International Trade and Economics serves as a stunning indictment and striking rebuke for Greenpeace and FOE and their disingenuous anti-palm oil campaigns!

Says Roberts: "Greenpeace willfully ignores some inconvenient, yet vitally important facts."

For instance, Roberts notes: "For starters, palm oil is environmentally friendly. On a per-liter basis, palm oil production requires less energy and land-and fewer fertilizers or pesticides-than other vegetable oils."

"What's more, Indonesia and Malaysia--both major palm oil and paper producers--have put 25 percent and 50 percent of their forest cover, respectively, off limits to development and established extensive wildlife protection efforts. In other words, both nations are being socially responsible."

So what's the real driver behind the anti-development campaigns led by European green groups? Roberts offers a clue: "First, let's consider Europe's vegetable oil producers, timber producers and paper manufacturers. They don't much like competition from the Asian market!"

In the view of the Palmhugger.org, truth has a funny way of coming out. Isn't it better for the green groups to seek rapprochement and engage with the palm oil industry than to carry on this itinerant economic warfare against one of the most inherently sustainable of oilseed crops. THE END.

About the Author

Palm Hugger is a palm oil advocacy site that makes no

apologies for exposing the lies, untruths and equivocations on palm oil spewed by a coterie

of environmental morons against the world's most sustainable edible oil and biofuel

feedstock. We are part of a collective group of palm oil sympathizers that have grown tired

of the blatant untruths, spin, lies and unfair trade bloc promoting activities of green NGOs

like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (FOE) against palm oil.