World Growth Warning Over UK Government Palm Oil Enquiry

Misleading Anti-Palm Oil Claims Foster Poverty and Undermine Efforts to Avert the Looming Global Food Crisis

Pro-Development NGO Questions Intent of Review

LONDON, Sept. 2 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, World Growth Chairman Ambassador Alan Oxley warned of the consequences for the world's poor of blindly treating as fact erroneous and widely circulated claims about palm oil in a letter to Mrs. Caroline Spelman, the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

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The letter follows the first Global Business of Biodiversity Symposium in London where Mrs. Spelman announced that the UK government will fund a research project on Britain's consumption of palm oil.  World Growth expressed concern that the starting point for this research is a misconception that the palm oil industry is currently unsustainable. In fact palm oil is the most sustainable vegetable oil in the world.  It generates almost 10 times the energy that it consumes and has a higher yield than other crop-based oilseeds.

Citing support from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and Africa's first female Nobel Laureate, Wangari Maathai, Mr. Oxley's letter states that poverty is the leading cause of deforestation in developing nations, an inconvenient truth for the radical environmental NGOs who intone with environmental officials claim that palm oil drives deforestation in Southeast Asia. He also warned that discouraging trade and growth of palm oil, a food staple in the developing world, would hinder efforts to reduce poverty.

In closing, Mr. Oxley urged Mrs. Spelman, "to ensure the enquiry encompasses the vital development dimension of palm oil, considers the sustainability issues objectively and recognizes the importance of expanding palm oil production to ensure supply is adequate to address the looming global food crisis and meet the rapidly growing demand in the developing world."

To view the World Growth letter to Secretary of State Spelman, click here.

To speak with World Growth's experts, please email [email protected] or call +1-866-467-7200.

World Growth is a non-profit, non-governmental organization established to expand the research, information, advocacy, and other resources to improve the economic conditions and living standards in developing and transitional countries. At World Growth, we embrace the age of globalization and the power of free trade to eradicate poverty and create jobs and opportunities. World Growth supports the production of palm oil and the use of forestry as a means to promote economic growth, reduce poverty and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. World Growth believes a robust cultivation of palm oil and forestry provides an effective means of environmental stewardship that can serve as the catalyst for increasing social and economic development.  For more information on World Growth, visit www.worldgrowth.org.

SOURCE World Growth