InfoSAWIT, JAKARTA - Free deforestation commodity – policy that European Union (EU) published, keeps being discussed. Indonesia and Malaysia as two biggest palm oil producer countries asked that the policy implementation should be the same with field condition. Five issues were discussed. Meanwhile social campaigners encouraged EUDR would be positive for independent smallholders.
On 6 December 2022, UE Commission published European Union Deforestation Commission that the deadline to be implemented would be in the early of 2025. But the policy would not be available for micro, small, medium business actors in EU. It would be effectively implementing in June 2025 or half year slower than other countries.
But Council of Palm Oil Producing Countries (CPOPC) did action for the policy. The officials did same efforts, such as, with the Government of Indonesia and Malaysia by making the same mission to Brussels. It met the officials in EU Commission to discuss EUDR.
The second meeting of Ad Hoc Joint Task Force (JTF) EUDR in Putrajaya, Malaysia, would be significant to solve the challenges and opportunities from EUDR.
It was led by the representatives from Malaysia, Indonesia, and EU Commission together with palm oil, coffee, rubber, cocoa, and wood stakeholders.
The taskforce focused on five workstreams. The first was about smallholders’ inclusivity in their supply chain. The focus was about what they face and how the solution would be to mitigate the potential impacts from EUDR implementation.
The second was about relevant certification scheme (obliged implementation) that discuss the gaps between national scale – certification and certification in EUDR.
The third was about traceability. Indonesia and Malaysia did represent their traceability tools, such as, National Dashboard, Sawit Intelligent Management (SIMS), and electronic – Malaysia Sustainable Palm Oil (e-MSPO).
The fourth was about to represent the progress about observatorium deforestation and forest degradation in the continent while Indonesia and Malaysia represented deforestation data and policy. “EU would be open to the input and discussion about their map contents,” General Secretary of CPOPC, Rizal Affandi Lukman said in an event in Jakarta that InfoSAWIT attended.
The fifth, Indonesia and Malaysia discussed the bans about geolocation data in the two countries. EU delivered answer that data needed would be anonymous and having nothing to do with personal information from each individual.
Rizal though CPOPC would improve everything to support the sustainable facilities in the workstream that happened in the workstream 1 by facilitating the smallholders to prepare themselves in EUDR implementation through CPOPC International Smallholders Workshop 2024 in June. (T2)
