EVERY year for the past two years, the Malaysian Palm Oil Council (MPOC) has been hosting the Palm Oil Industry Leadership Forum. This time around, the theme for the forum is “Forging Sustainable Business Networking Through Malaysian Palm Oil”. This year, the mood is not so good. Not only is the price of palm oil at a five-year low, the oil has also not rid itself of the harassment by environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Despite all the initiatives taken to engage stakeholders through all kinds of roundtable, the NGOs have not stopped bashing palm oil. Palm oil in fact blamed for everything wrong with the world, from deforestation to climate change. Will such harassment ever stop? The low palm oil price, as expected, dominated most of this year’s forum. At below RM2,000 per tonne, the less productive among the planters are beginning to feel the pain. Small farmers especially are most at risk. It is a fact that the costs of production by smallholders are the highest in the industry. This is because of their comparatively lower yields. But even the estates are starting to feel the pressure from the low price. If the price does not bottom out soon, even the bigger players may not be celebrating this year. Asked when the bottoming out will happen, Thomas Mielke of Oil World, who was also the key speaker for the day, hesitated to commit a guess. His best answer was that it would depend on a number of factors. A typical reply by an economist.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 09:47:32 +0000
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