RSPO to welcome more smallholders with new standard

KOTA KINABALU: The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil ( RSPO), which is currently improving its standard for smallholders, hopes to welcome more of them on board next year.

Chief executive officer Datuk Darrel Webber said this would enable the smal lholders to penetrate a bigger market.

He also said the RSPO, an i nternat ional non- prof i t organisation, discovered the trend that although smallholders operate on a smaller scale, they do have the potential to outperform non- certified companies which are bigger.

“We ask the smallholders to measure their performance against things that can be improved and a lot of them are taking time to do so. For instance, how much fertiliser they use and when, and so that really helps,” he told reporters at the 16th Annual Roundtable Conference on Sustainable Palm Oil event, hosted by the RSPO.

The Smallholder Standard, Webber explained, when implemented, could help them get market access, including Europe.

“Europe as you know has been trying to shut down the market in some areas for palm oil, but remains open to sustainable palm oil,” he said. — Bernama