Difficulty in approaching independent smallholders and land title issues are the two biggest challenges currently faced by the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), being one of the regulatory bodies to get the remaining oil palm plantations certified under the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO). MPOB director-general Dr Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir said there are 259,000 smallholders in the sector in Malaysia, and out of this number, around 40 per cent of their estates have been certified while the remaining 60 per cent are yet to be certified. “So, we need to basically approach especially the smallholders because they are small and scattered, independent and not directly link to us. So, it’s our responsibility to make sure we find all of them. He said the issue with the smallholders is the difficulty to reach them as they are scattered over the country and not basically handling or managing their plantation themselves or might reside in different places. “Other than that, some of the smallholders are of average age of around 59-60 years old. This is quite elderly and for them to be complying with the MSPO,” he said. “Nevertheless, I think for us this (MSPO certification) is very important, so we will do our best to make sure everybody will come on board and have all the smallholders being certified with MSPO,” he said.

Posted by

Malaymail