Malaysia’s state plantation agency will focus on growing oil palms in West Africa after scrapping plans to develop estates in Brazil last month, the Business Times reported today.
The Federal Land Development Authority (Felda), which owns 800,000 hectares of plantation land in Malaysia, will expand mostly in Cameroon and Liberia, its chairman Mohamad Yusof Noor was quoted as saying by the business daily.
“We might start planing an initial 100,000 hectares and if there is no trouble, we can increase the hectareage,” Mohamad Yusof said. “But it’s all under feasibility study right now.”
Felda follows in the footsteps of top listed plantation company Sime Darby, which in May struck a deal with the Liberian government to develop oil palm and rubber estates in the West African nation.
Malaysian planters are looking overseas to expand as land runs out at home and global demand grows for palm oil, used in products such as detergents, biofuels and chocolates.
Countries like neighbouring Indonesia are seen as an immediate choice although West African countries are a greater draw due to lucrative development concessions and proximity to the US and European markets.
Oil palm grows naturally in Africa and was imported during British rule to Malaysia, now the world’s second largest producer after neighbouring Indonesia.
Brazil was also seen as a natural pick for expansion but pressure from green groups who say that planting oil palms would speed up deforestation in the Amazon and fuel climate change prompted Felda to scrap plans to develop the region.
“The payback period is too long and we received protests, which are unhealthy to the company, accusing us of polluting the air when in reality somebody else wanted the land to grow soyabean,” Mohamed Yusof said.
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