BEAUFORT, Jan 4 — 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.
She said this at an MSPO briefing for Sabah oil palm planters at Dewan Kesenian Islam, Membakut near here today.
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.
She said MPOB had issued notice to owners of oil palm plantations with an area of 100 acres and above to strive for MSPO certification or risk having their licence to sell revoked.
“The ministry hopes through this briefing that independent smallholders around Membakut and Beaufort would apply for MSPO certification,” she said.
