Bangkok--22 Nov--GIZ
Photo from left;
1) Bob Norman, General Manager of the trading platform GreenPalm
2) Simon Perry, Sourcing Manager, Johnson & Johnson
3) Alwi Hafiz, Managing Director, BSI Group ASEAN
4) Daniel May, Director of the Sustainable Palm Oil Production for Bio-energy Project, GIZ
5) Volker Stoeppler, Counsellor — Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection
At the Certificate Handover Ceremony between Johnson & Johnson and Smallholders
recently held in Krabi.
Johnson & Johnson, the world’s leading health care company, won the purchasing deal of RSPO certificates under the Book and Claim system* from Thailand’s four independent oil palm smallholders’ groups, the first in the world to be certified with the RSPO standard. The four groups of Thai smallholders were among the pilot independent smallholders taking part in the “Sustainable Palm Oil Production” project, which received RSPO certification in October 2012. The 3.5 year project (January 2009 — June 2012) was funded by the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and implemented by German International Cooperation (GIZ) and the Office of Agricultural Economics under Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives.
During the course of the project, the income of the Thai palm oil industry increased by up to 40 million baht, significantly from the reduction of the production costs. Farmers are now even receiving a price premium for their certified products. The participating mills, which provided considerable support to the farmers also financially benefited by increased Oil Extraction Rate (OER). There is huge potential for further up-scaling in the Thai Oil Palm Industry, as ‘only’ 412 smallholders have been certified, managing overall 2.767ha of plantation and producing about 52.000t of Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) per year.