The Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) on Tuesday chided Presidential Adviser for Food Security Francis N. Pangilinan, the country’s food czar, for promoting the massive cultivation of palm oil.
UMA was reacting to Pangilinan’s statement that the government is planning to allocate a million hectares for palm-oil plantations in the country within the next 10 years during the Ninth National Oil Palm Congress in General Santos City last week.
The government is reportedly planning to allocate P50 million for palm-oil plantation expansion, which the group believes will benefit foreign companies and not farmers and farmworkers.
In a statement, UMA Deputy Secretary-General Ranmil Echanis said palm-oil plantations “have only brought hunger and extreme poverty in farming communities especially in Mindanao.”
Echanis said agricultural workers employed in the country’s oldest palm-oil plantations in Caraga region suffer “hazardous” working conditions and receive very low wages.
After 30 years of toiling, he said palm-oil plantation workers remain as casual workers as reported by the Pinagbuklod na LakasManggagawa sa Plantasyon ng Agusan Plantation Inc., or Piglas-Mapapi, UMA’s affiliate in Agusan del Sur.
Also, UMA cited a 2012 study by the Center for Trade Union and Human Rights which revealed that 24 percent of plantation workers in Agusan del Sur are children between 5 to 7 years old who were forced by poverty to work in palm-oil plantations.
The group said massive conversion of land intended for food production for palm oil should be “strongly opposed” as it will not help address hunger and poverty that is being experienced in the countryside.
3 comments
Ano ba naman ito Senator Sharon. Saksakan na ng dami ang ebidensya na walang umaasenso sa Oil Palm kundi ang Malaysian na Capitalista. Idagdag mo pa ang pagkasira sa Kalikasan at pag lapastangan sa karapatan ng mga Katutubo at maliliit na Magsasaka. Hindi dahil naging part-time weekend farmer ka sa tagaytay ay pwede ka nang maging Presidential Adviser sa Hacienderong Presidente!
Maganda ang planong ito. Sana magtuluy-tuloy. Naging masagana ang ekonomiya ng Malaysia dahil sa palm oil plantation nila. Buong paligid ng airport nila ay may palm tree plantation. Ang gandang tignan pa.
All researches and actual usage point to the fact that the best oil is still coconut oil. The coconut tree is native to the Philippines and coconut derivatives have been one of our main agricultural exports from way back. Coconut oil was demonized by some sectors in the US in the 70’s and 80’s but now it is back in the good graces of healthy Americans when they realized the truth. Can the Agriculture Dept. present a comparison of benefits between coconut oil versus palm oil.