Teresa Kok – Bernama Photo
BEAUFORT: About 3.64 million hectares, or 62.3 per cent, of the 5.85 million hectares of oil palm plantations in the country have obtained the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification as of Dec 31, 2019.
Primary Industries Minister Teresa Kok said the certification involved 2.98 million hectares of oil palm estates, 578,707 hectares of organised smallholdings and 89,454 hectares of independent smallholdings.
She said 340, or 75.2 per cent, of palm oil mills in Malaysia had also received MSPO certification.
“For Sabah, all 29 sustainable palm oil clusters have been MSPO certified, involving 3,513 independent smallholdings with a total area of 24,964 hectares,” she said this at an MSPO briefing for Sabah oil palm planters at Dewan Kesenian Islam, Membakut near here yesterday.
Also present was Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) director-general, Dr Ahmad Parveez Ghulam Kadir.
Kok regarded the MSPO-certified areas in Sabah as still low as they only accounted for 11.6 per cent of the total 215,000 hectares in the state. – Bernama