KUALA LUMPUR: Top edible oil buyer
India will likely import record volumes of vegetable oils to feed a
rapidly growing population in the next marketing year, a trade body
said, despite a recent government hike in import duties for the refined
grade.
India's total edible oil imports in 2014/2015 are projected to rise to 11 million tonnes, a senior official at the Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) said on Thursday, as food and fuel demands grow with the population.
India's refined palm olein imports alone are projected to climb more than 70 percent to 3.8 million tonnes 2014/15 from the current year, said SEA's executive director B.V. Mehta, speaking at an industry meet in Kuala Lumpur.
Market participants had initially said that New Delhi's decision to raise its import duty on refined edible oils to 10 percent from 7.5 percent could see buyers switching to crude palm oil instead, raising fears that Indian imports of refined edible oils would plummet.
But extra freight charges incurred to import the crude grade of the tropical oil from top producers Indonesia and Malaysia may see investors sticking to refined palm oil imports.
"Who will import crude palm oil when you're getting the refined product at almost the same rate? There's hardly a difference of 5 to 10 dollars," said Mehta at the sidelines of the conference.
India's crude palm oil imports in the 2014/2015 year will likely drop nearly 30 percent to 4.3 million tonnes, he said.
The trade body chief also said that India is not likely to raise the refined oil import duty further for now as it tried to keep food inflation in check before its general elections.
"The government is more cautious and will be reluctant to change the duty structure again, fearing it may lead to food inflation, which is a major issue in India," he said.
Imported palm oil, used to make a variety of products from soaps to cookies, constitutes about 80 percent of India's total annual vegetable oil demand of 17 million-18 million tonnes.
India also imports a small quantity of soyoil from South America.- Reuters
India's total edible oil imports in 2014/2015 are projected to rise to 11 million tonnes, a senior official at the Solvent Extractors Association (SEA) said on Thursday, as food and fuel demands grow with the population.
India's refined palm olein imports alone are projected to climb more than 70 percent to 3.8 million tonnes 2014/15 from the current year, said SEA's executive director B.V. Mehta, speaking at an industry meet in Kuala Lumpur.
Market participants had initially said that New Delhi's decision to raise its import duty on refined edible oils to 10 percent from 7.5 percent could see buyers switching to crude palm oil instead, raising fears that Indian imports of refined edible oils would plummet.
But extra freight charges incurred to import the crude grade of the tropical oil from top producers Indonesia and Malaysia may see investors sticking to refined palm oil imports.
"Who will import crude palm oil when you're getting the refined product at almost the same rate? There's hardly a difference of 5 to 10 dollars," said Mehta at the sidelines of the conference.
India's crude palm oil imports in the 2014/2015 year will likely drop nearly 30 percent to 4.3 million tonnes, he said.
The trade body chief also said that India is not likely to raise the refined oil import duty further for now as it tried to keep food inflation in check before its general elections.
"The government is more cautious and will be reluctant to change the duty structure again, fearing it may lead to food inflation, which is a major issue in India," he said.
Imported palm oil, used to make a variety of products from soaps to cookies, constitutes about 80 percent of India's total annual vegetable oil demand of 17 million-18 million tonnes.
India also imports a small quantity of soyoil from South America.- Reuters
Thursday, 23 Jan, 2014
Palm Oil Council CEO on Cream of the Croppers
Tan Sri Yusof Basiron of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council has achieved much for the industry. – RAJA FAISAL HISHAN/The Star
Malaysian
Palm Oil Council (MPOC) CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron reminisces about the
early days of the oil palm industry and its growth in our country.
HIS
parents were peasant farmers from Rembau, Negri Sembilan. Like many
rural Malay folk in the 1950s, they worked on modest smallholdings
producing rice and other food crops. The lush Malaysian landscape was
then dotted with tin mines and rubber estates, the biggest dollar
earners at the time.
Six decades on, Malaysian
Palm Oil Council CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron has stayed true to his family
trade. And today, the country’s landscape is dominated by a new
commodity, palm oil.
Through his work on the crop, Yusof has made his mark.
Yusof’s
parents wanted him to have a good education, and as a teen, he excelled
at chemistry and mathematics. This got him into a prestigious military
college; he later obtained a government scholarship for his
undergraduate studies.
Yusof wasn’t particularly
passionate about chemical engineering, his chosen field, and despite his
successes, he insists he wasn’t particularly ambitious either. It was
simply a case of going with the flow.
His first
job at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia led to a post-graduate
degree in rubber technology, after which he joined the newly established
Palm Oil Research Institute (Porim), in 1979. And the rest, as they
say, is history.
As Malaysia’s economy chugged its
way through the 80s, transforming itself from being largely
agricultural based into one driven by industrial growth, Yusof became
part of the machinery that fashioned palm oil into a major player in the
economy.
By 1980, synthetic rubber had eaten into
the market share of Malaysia’s star crop, natural rubber, taking over
70% of the world’s total rubber consumption. And in 1985, a crash in
world tin prices sealed that commodity’s status as a sunset industry. It
was time to diversify. And Malaysia was placing its bets on palm oil.
Creating new markets
When Yusof first started with Porim, the oil palm industry was small.
“About two million tonnes of palm oil were produced a year,” recalls Yusof.
But the chemical engineer in him allowed Yusof to believe in the product and its greater potential.
“We
knew that the world population was increasing. We knew that demand for
edible oil was going to increase. And we knew that we could grow (more)
palm oil.
“What we weren’t sure about was whether the world would actually consume palm oil if we ramped up production.”
It’s
strange to think back on a time when palm oil only played a small role
in the global economy. Today, it’s worth about US$44bil (RM146bil) a
year. And palm oil products are used in, well, pretty much everything –
from confectionery and cosmetics, to industrial products, biofuels and
feedstock.
But back in the 70s, Yusof says it was mostly only used in soaps or margarine.
He added: “Even in Malaysia, the oil we used for cooking was coconut oil.”
Having a basic understanding of the chemical composition of palm oil however, the team at Porim knew they were onto something.
“Palm
oil is a very stable frying oil, so we explored this. At the time, the
task ahead was not only to develop the product, but create new markets
for it by educating consumers about its advantages.
“So
we did research to characterise palm oil, to turn it into an acceptable
quality for food use, and to expand its potential applications.”
Porim’s findings were shared with instant noodle manufacturers in China and Japan.
“We told them palm oil would provide the best shelf life for products, and that it is cheaper to produce.”
Today, palm oil is a common ingredient in instant noodles, and China alone consumes about 42 billion packets per year.
Looking
back at his younger years, Yusof feels that chemical engineering, a
subject with broad-based applications, was a smart choice.
Now 65, he helms the MPOC, an organisation formed to protect and promote the interests of the palm oil sector.
The
necessity for such an association became apparent as soon as the crop’s
early successes led to a backlash from major competitors.
In
1986, palm oil took over a substantial share of the Pakistani market
for vegetable oils, at the expense of the United States. That same year,
exports of the oil into the US doubled, leading the American Soyabean
Association to launch a series of anti-palm oil campaigns in 1987.
Despite its recent dip in prices, Malaysian palm oil has been a success story which Yusof is proud to have been a part of.
In
2011, Malaysian palm oil accounted for 17.6 million tonnes, or 24.1% of
the global trade in oils and fats, but Yusof remembers when he first
joined the newly established Porim. He was the only Malaysian in an
institute headed and dominated by British scientists at the time. And
the team had their work cut out for them but there was a pioneering
spirit to lay firm the groundwork.
“We rented
shophouses in Ampang Jaya and Dato Keramat in Selangor to set up
temporary labs to get our research projects going, and then a few floors
at Wisma Central in downtown Kuala Lumpur for office space,” he
remembered.
Aside from developing and diversifying
downstream applications through refined and fractionated oils and
oleochemicals, one of the institute’s earliest breakthroughs was to
revolutionise palm oil milling technology. Up until then, cooking the
palm fruit bunches involved putting them in cages and into a high
pressure cooker.
“It was a dirty, dangerous process, people got killed by the high-pressure steam,” Yusof explained.
What the institute did was to come up with a new, automated way of cooking the fruit bunches.
“Our
idea was simple. Instead of using high pressure to cook the fruit, we
decided to try a mechanised conveyor system, rollers and a cooking
tunnel.
The new automated system was clean, tidy
and so successful that it reduced manpower by 50-60% and created a new
revenue stream for the country through the commercialisation and sales
of the technology to millers all over the world.
Healthy oils
Yusof
is recollecting these stories while in his large, sparsely decorated
office at MPOC’s headquarters just off the Damansara–Puchong Expressway
in Petaling Jaya. There is a big desk piled with neat stacks of files at
one end. At the other, next to the door sits a small display table
decorated with Smart Balance spreads and cooking oils – a brand
identified by its blend of healthy oils, developed by researchers at the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board and marketed successfully in the United
States.
Yusof’s three decades or so in the
industry have taken him from the role of divisional director at Porim,
to director general, a role he continued to occupy for a period after
the institute’s transformation into its current incarnation: the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board.
Today, Yusof blogs,
tweets (about palm oil) and just recently, was conferred the honour of a
Senior Fellow at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM), for which he
served as president a few years back.
He can come
across as pretty intense when it comes to his thoughts on global palm
oil issues, especially when talking about NGOs and the anti-palm oil
lobby. But for a man who has not only witnessed, but played a
significant role in nurturing the crop from zero-base to one of the
country’s most important exports, is that any wonder?
Yusof
says palm oil is an industry in which one cannot afford to be
complacent. He cites the price collapse of 2001 as an example, and
shares how he was involved in crisis management then.
“That was a dark time. Farmers were getting around RM80 per tonne, compared to the RM400-RM500 they earn today.
“It was like there was no more value left in the fruit bunches,” he remembers.
They
countered the situation with a new strategy: by burning palm oil in
power plants and creating replanting schemes to cut out supply.
“Within a year, that helped prices to recover, and I record that as one of my contributions.”
An
important part of the job he says, is trying to anticipate and be
prepared for possible events of the future. This requires smart,
innovative mindsets in science, economics and agriculture.
Yusof sees the importance of creating the infrastructure, not just to nurture, but to identify and work with fresh young talent.
During
his tenure as president of ASM, he introduced a number of initiatives,
such as the Top Research Scientist Malaysia project, the Mega Science
project and he proposed the formation of the Mahathir Science Award
Foundation.
The idea was to identify the movers
and shakers, using these initiatives to lure them out of the woodwork
and provide networking opportunities and platforms to work together.
He sees science as essential to driving the economy forward. Right now, the economy is caught within the middle income trap.
“There
isn’t enough technology to base our economy on, to move forward. We’ve
been importing these manufacturing processes rather than creating enough
of our own.”
He added: “Compared with other
countries, the quantum of research and investment in science R&D in
Malaysia has been low, due to certain priorities of development and
social engineering.”
On being granted the
much-coveted Senior Fellowship at ASM, Yusof said he values the
recognition. It’s a milestone, for sure. But somehow one gets the
feeling that much more lies ahead.
Source : The Star
Thursday, 23 Jan, 2014
Palm Oil Council CEO on Cream of the Croppers
Tan Sri Yusof Basiron of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council has achieved much for the industry. – RAJA FAISAL HISHAN/The Star
Malaysian
Palm Oil Council (MPOC) CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron reminisces about the
early days of the oil palm industry and its growth in our country.
HIS
parents were peasant farmers from Rembau, Negri Sembilan. Like many
rural Malay folk in the 1950s, they worked on modest smallholdings
producing rice and other food crops. The lush Malaysian landscape was
then dotted with tin mines and rubber estates, the biggest dollar
earners at the time.
Six decades on, Malaysian
Palm Oil Council CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron has stayed true to his family
trade. And today, the country’s landscape is dominated by a new
commodity, palm oil.
Through his work on the crop, Yusof has made his mark.
Yusof’s
parents wanted him to have a good education, and as a teen, he excelled
at chemistry and mathematics. This got him into a prestigious military
college; he later obtained a government scholarship for his
undergraduate studies.
Yusof wasn’t particularly
passionate about chemical engineering, his chosen field, and despite his
successes, he insists he wasn’t particularly ambitious either. It was
simply a case of going with the flow.
His first
job at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia led to a post-graduate
degree in rubber technology, after which he joined the newly established
Palm Oil Research Institute (Porim), in 1979. And the rest, as they
say, is history.
As Malaysia’s economy chugged its
way through the 80s, transforming itself from being largely
agricultural based into one driven by industrial growth, Yusof became
part of the machinery that fashioned palm oil into a major player in the
economy.
By 1980, synthetic rubber had eaten into
the market share of Malaysia’s star crop, natural rubber, taking over
70% of the world’s total rubber consumption. And in 1985, a crash in
world tin prices sealed that commodity’s status as a sunset industry. It
was time to diversify. And Malaysia was placing its bets on palm oil.
Creating new markets
When Yusof first started with Porim, the oil palm industry was small.
“About two million tonnes of palm oil were produced a year,” recalls Yusof.
But the chemical engineer in him allowed Yusof to believe in the product and its greater potential.
“We
knew that the world population was increasing. We knew that demand for
edible oil was going to increase. And we knew that we could grow (more)
palm oil.
“What we weren’t sure about was whether the world would actually consume palm oil if we ramped up production.”
It’s
strange to think back on a time when palm oil only played a small role
in the global economy. Today, it’s worth about US$44bil (RM146bil) a
year. And palm oil products are used in, well, pretty much everything –
from confectionery and cosmetics, to industrial products, biofuels and
feedstock.
But back in the 70s, Yusof says it was mostly only used in soaps or margarine.
He added: “Even in Malaysia, the oil we used for cooking was coconut oil.”
Having a basic understanding of the chemical composition of palm oil however, the team at Porim knew they were onto something.
“Palm
oil is a very stable frying oil, so we explored this. At the time, the
task ahead was not only to develop the product, but create new markets
for it by educating consumers about its advantages.
“So
we did research to characterise palm oil, to turn it into an acceptable
quality for food use, and to expand its potential applications.”
Porim’s findings were shared with instant noodle manufacturers in China and Japan.
“We told them palm oil would provide the best shelf life for products, and that it is cheaper to produce.”
Today, palm oil is a common ingredient in instant noodles, and China alone consumes about 42 billion packets per year.
Looking
back at his younger years, Yusof feels that chemical engineering, a
subject with broad-based applications, was a smart choice.
Now 65, he helms the MPOC, an organisation formed to protect and promote the interests of the palm oil sector.
The
necessity for such an association became apparent as soon as the crop’s
early successes led to a backlash from major competitors.
In
1986, palm oil took over a substantial share of the Pakistani market
for vegetable oils, at the expense of the United States. That same year,
exports of the oil into the US doubled, leading the American Soyabean
Association to launch a series of anti-palm oil campaigns in 1987.
Despite its recent dip in prices, Malaysian palm oil has been a success story which Yusof is proud to have been a part of.
In
2011, Malaysian palm oil accounted for 17.6 million tonnes, or 24.1% of
the global trade in oils and fats, but Yusof remembers when he first
joined the newly established Porim. He was the only Malaysian in an
institute headed and dominated by British scientists at the time. And
the team had their work cut out for them but there was a pioneering
spirit to lay firm the groundwork.
“We rented
shophouses in Ampang Jaya and Dato Keramat in Selangor to set up
temporary labs to get our research projects going, and then a few floors
at Wisma Central in downtown Kuala Lumpur for office space,” he
remembered.
Aside from developing and diversifying
downstream applications through refined and fractionated oils and
oleochemicals, one of the institute’s earliest breakthroughs was to
revolutionise palm oil milling technology. Up until then, cooking the
palm fruit bunches involved putting them in cages and into a high
pressure cooker.
“It was a dirty, dangerous process, people got killed by the high-pressure steam,” Yusof explained.
What the institute did was to come up with a new, automated way of cooking the fruit bunches.
“Our
idea was simple. Instead of using high pressure to cook the fruit, we
decided to try a mechanised conveyor system, rollers and a cooking
tunnel.
The new automated system was clean, tidy
and so successful that it reduced manpower by 50-60% and created a new
revenue stream for the country through the commercialisation and sales
of the technology to millers all over the world.
Healthy oils
Yusof
is recollecting these stories while in his large, sparsely decorated
office at MPOC’s headquarters just off the Damansara–Puchong Expressway
in Petaling Jaya. There is a big desk piled with neat stacks of files at
one end. At the other, next to the door sits a small display table
decorated with Smart Balance spreads and cooking oils – a brand
identified by its blend of healthy oils, developed by researchers at the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board and marketed successfully in the United
States.
Yusof’s three decades or so in the
industry have taken him from the role of divisional director at Porim,
to director general, a role he continued to occupy for a period after
the institute’s transformation into its current incarnation: the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board.
Today, Yusof blogs,
tweets (about palm oil) and just recently, was conferred the honour of a
Senior Fellow at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM), for which he
served as president a few years back.
He can come
across as pretty intense when it comes to his thoughts on global palm
oil issues, especially when talking about NGOs and the anti-palm oil
lobby. But for a man who has not only witnessed, but played a
significant role in nurturing the crop from zero-base to one of the
country’s most important exports, is that any wonder?
Yusof
says palm oil is an industry in which one cannot afford to be
complacent. He cites the price collapse of 2001 as an example, and
shares how he was involved in crisis management then.
“That was a dark time. Farmers were getting around RM80 per tonne, compared to the RM400-RM500 they earn today.
“It was like there was no more value left in the fruit bunches,” he remembers.
They
countered the situation with a new strategy: by burning palm oil in
power plants and creating replanting schemes to cut out supply.
“Within a year, that helped prices to recover, and I record that as one of my contributions.”
An
important part of the job he says, is trying to anticipate and be
prepared for possible events of the future. This requires smart,
innovative mindsets in science, economics and agriculture.
Yusof sees the importance of creating the infrastructure, not just to nurture, but to identify and work with fresh young talent.
During
his tenure as president of ASM, he introduced a number of initiatives,
such as the Top Research Scientist Malaysia project, the Mega Science
project and he proposed the formation of the Mahathir Science Award
Foundation.
The idea was to identify the movers
and shakers, using these initiatives to lure them out of the woodwork
and provide networking opportunities and platforms to work together.
He sees science as essential to driving the economy forward. Right now, the economy is caught within the middle income trap.
“There
isn’t enough technology to base our economy on, to move forward. We’ve
been importing these manufacturing processes rather than creating enough
of our own.”
He added: “Compared with other
countries, the quantum of research and investment in science R&D in
Malaysia has been low, due to certain priorities of development and
social engineering.”
On being granted the
much-coveted Senior Fellowship at ASM, Yusof said he values the
recognition. It’s a milestone, for sure. But somehow one gets the
feeling that much more lies ahead.
Source : The Star
Thursday, 23 Jan, 2014
Palm Oil Council CEO on Cream of the Croppers
Tan Sri Yusof Basiron of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council has achieved much for the industry. – RAJA FAISAL HISHAN/The Star
Malaysian
Palm Oil Council (MPOC) CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron reminisces about the
early days of the oil palm industry and its growth in our country.
HIS
parents were peasant farmers from Rembau, Negri Sembilan. Like many
rural Malay folk in the 1950s, they worked on modest smallholdings
producing rice and other food crops. The lush Malaysian landscape was
then dotted with tin mines and rubber estates, the biggest dollar
earners at the time.
Six decades on, Malaysian
Palm Oil Council CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron has stayed true to his family
trade. And today, the country’s landscape is dominated by a new
commodity, palm oil.
Through his work on the crop, Yusof has made his mark.
Yusof’s
parents wanted him to have a good education, and as a teen, he excelled
at chemistry and mathematics. This got him into a prestigious military
college; he later obtained a government scholarship for his
undergraduate studies.
Yusof wasn’t particularly
passionate about chemical engineering, his chosen field, and despite his
successes, he insists he wasn’t particularly ambitious either. It was
simply a case of going with the flow.
His first
job at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia led to a post-graduate
degree in rubber technology, after which he joined the newly established
Palm Oil Research Institute (Porim), in 1979. And the rest, as they
say, is history.
As Malaysia’s economy chugged its
way through the 80s, transforming itself from being largely
agricultural based into one driven by industrial growth, Yusof became
part of the machinery that fashioned palm oil into a major player in the
economy.
By 1980, synthetic rubber had eaten into
the market share of Malaysia’s star crop, natural rubber, taking over
70% of the world’s total rubber consumption. And in 1985, a crash in
world tin prices sealed that commodity’s status as a sunset industry. It
was time to diversify. And Malaysia was placing its bets on palm oil.
Creating new markets
When Yusof first started with Porim, the oil palm industry was small.
“About two million tonnes of palm oil were produced a year,” recalls Yusof.
But the chemical engineer in him allowed Yusof to believe in the product and its greater potential.
“We
knew that the world population was increasing. We knew that demand for
edible oil was going to increase. And we knew that we could grow (more)
palm oil.
“What we weren’t sure about was whether the world would actually consume palm oil if we ramped up production.”
It’s
strange to think back on a time when palm oil only played a small role
in the global economy. Today, it’s worth about US$44bil (RM146bil) a
year. And palm oil products are used in, well, pretty much everything –
from confectionery and cosmetics, to industrial products, biofuels and
feedstock.
But back in the 70s, Yusof says it was mostly only used in soaps or margarine.
He added: “Even in Malaysia, the oil we used for cooking was coconut oil.”
Having a basic understanding of the chemical composition of palm oil however, the team at Porim knew they were onto something.
“Palm
oil is a very stable frying oil, so we explored this. At the time, the
task ahead was not only to develop the product, but create new markets
for it by educating consumers about its advantages.
“So
we did research to characterise palm oil, to turn it into an acceptable
quality for food use, and to expand its potential applications.”
Porim’s findings were shared with instant noodle manufacturers in China and Japan.
“We told them palm oil would provide the best shelf life for products, and that it is cheaper to produce.”
Today, palm oil is a common ingredient in instant noodles, and China alone consumes about 42 billion packets per year.
Looking
back at his younger years, Yusof feels that chemical engineering, a
subject with broad-based applications, was a smart choice.
Now 65, he helms the MPOC, an organisation formed to protect and promote the interests of the palm oil sector.
The
necessity for such an association became apparent as soon as the crop’s
early successes led to a backlash from major competitors.
In
1986, palm oil took over a substantial share of the Pakistani market
for vegetable oils, at the expense of the United States. That same year,
exports of the oil into the US doubled, leading the American Soyabean
Association to launch a series of anti-palm oil campaigns in 1987.
Despite its recent dip in prices, Malaysian palm oil has been a success story which Yusof is proud to have been a part of.
In
2011, Malaysian palm oil accounted for 17.6 million tonnes, or 24.1% of
the global trade in oils and fats, but Yusof remembers when he first
joined the newly established Porim. He was the only Malaysian in an
institute headed and dominated by British scientists at the time. And
the team had their work cut out for them but there was a pioneering
spirit to lay firm the groundwork.
“We rented
shophouses in Ampang Jaya and Dato Keramat in Selangor to set up
temporary labs to get our research projects going, and then a few floors
at Wisma Central in downtown Kuala Lumpur for office space,” he
remembered.
Aside from developing and diversifying
downstream applications through refined and fractionated oils and
oleochemicals, one of the institute’s earliest breakthroughs was to
revolutionise palm oil milling technology. Up until then, cooking the
palm fruit bunches involved putting them in cages and into a high
pressure cooker.
“It was a dirty, dangerous process, people got killed by the high-pressure steam,” Yusof explained.
What the institute did was to come up with a new, automated way of cooking the fruit bunches.
“Our
idea was simple. Instead of using high pressure to cook the fruit, we
decided to try a mechanised conveyor system, rollers and a cooking
tunnel.
The new automated system was clean, tidy
and so successful that it reduced manpower by 50-60% and created a new
revenue stream for the country through the commercialisation and sales
of the technology to millers all over the world.
Healthy oils
Yusof
is recollecting these stories while in his large, sparsely decorated
office at MPOC’s headquarters just off the Damansara–Puchong Expressway
in Petaling Jaya. There is a big desk piled with neat stacks of files at
one end. At the other, next to the door sits a small display table
decorated with Smart Balance spreads and cooking oils – a brand
identified by its blend of healthy oils, developed by researchers at the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board and marketed successfully in the United
States.
Yusof’s three decades or so in the
industry have taken him from the role of divisional director at Porim,
to director general, a role he continued to occupy for a period after
the institute’s transformation into its current incarnation: the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board.
Today, Yusof blogs,
tweets (about palm oil) and just recently, was conferred the honour of a
Senior Fellow at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM), for which he
served as president a few years back.
He can come
across as pretty intense when it comes to his thoughts on global palm
oil issues, especially when talking about NGOs and the anti-palm oil
lobby. But for a man who has not only witnessed, but played a
significant role in nurturing the crop from zero-base to one of the
country’s most important exports, is that any wonder?
Yusof
says palm oil is an industry in which one cannot afford to be
complacent. He cites the price collapse of 2001 as an example, and
shares how he was involved in crisis management then.
“That was a dark time. Farmers were getting around RM80 per tonne, compared to the RM400-RM500 they earn today.
“It was like there was no more value left in the fruit bunches,” he remembers.
They
countered the situation with a new strategy: by burning palm oil in
power plants and creating replanting schemes to cut out supply.
“Within a year, that helped prices to recover, and I record that as one of my contributions.”
An
important part of the job he says, is trying to anticipate and be
prepared for possible events of the future. This requires smart,
innovative mindsets in science, economics and agriculture.
Yusof sees the importance of creating the infrastructure, not just to nurture, but to identify and work with fresh young talent.
During
his tenure as president of ASM, he introduced a number of initiatives,
such as the Top Research Scientist Malaysia project, the Mega Science
project and he proposed the formation of the Mahathir Science Award
Foundation.
The idea was to identify the movers
and shakers, using these initiatives to lure them out of the woodwork
and provide networking opportunities and platforms to work together.
He sees science as essential to driving the economy forward. Right now, the economy is caught within the middle income trap.
“There
isn’t enough technology to base our economy on, to move forward. We’ve
been importing these manufacturing processes rather than creating enough
of our own.”
He added: “Compared with other
countries, the quantum of research and investment in science R&D in
Malaysia has been low, due to certain priorities of development and
social engineering.”
On being granted the
much-coveted Senior Fellowship at ASM, Yusof said he values the
recognition. It’s a milestone, for sure. But somehow one gets the
feeling that much more lies ahead.
Source : The Star
Thursday, 23 Jan, 2014
Palm Oil Council CEO on Cream of the Croppers
Tan Sri Yusof Basiron of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council has achieved much for the industry. – RAJA FAISAL HISHAN/The Star
Malaysian
Palm Oil Council (MPOC) CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron reminisces about the
early days of the oil palm industry and its growth in our country.
HIS
parents were peasant farmers from Rembau, Negri Sembilan. Like many
rural Malay folk in the 1950s, they worked on modest smallholdings
producing rice and other food crops. The lush Malaysian landscape was
then dotted with tin mines and rubber estates, the biggest dollar
earners at the time.
Six decades on, Malaysian
Palm Oil Council CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron has stayed true to his family
trade. And today, the country’s landscape is dominated by a new
commodity, palm oil.
Through his work on the crop, Yusof has made his mark.
Yusof’s
parents wanted him to have a good education, and as a teen, he excelled
at chemistry and mathematics. This got him into a prestigious military
college; he later obtained a government scholarship for his
undergraduate studies.
Yusof wasn’t particularly
passionate about chemical engineering, his chosen field, and despite his
successes, he insists he wasn’t particularly ambitious either. It was
simply a case of going with the flow.
His first
job at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia led to a post-graduate
degree in rubber technology, after which he joined the newly established
Palm Oil Research Institute (Porim), in 1979. And the rest, as they
say, is history.
As Malaysia’s economy chugged its
way through the 80s, transforming itself from being largely
agricultural based into one driven by industrial growth, Yusof became
part of the machinery that fashioned palm oil into a major player in the
economy.
By 1980, synthetic rubber had eaten into
the market share of Malaysia’s star crop, natural rubber, taking over
70% of the world’s total rubber consumption. And in 1985, a crash in
world tin prices sealed that commodity’s status as a sunset industry. It
was time to diversify. And Malaysia was placing its bets on palm oil.
Creating new markets
When Yusof first started with Porim, the oil palm industry was small.
“About two million tonnes of palm oil were produced a year,” recalls Yusof.
But the chemical engineer in him allowed Yusof to believe in the product and its greater potential.
“We
knew that the world population was increasing. We knew that demand for
edible oil was going to increase. And we knew that we could grow (more)
palm oil.
“What we weren’t sure about was whether the world would actually consume palm oil if we ramped up production.”
It’s
strange to think back on a time when palm oil only played a small role
in the global economy. Today, it’s worth about US$44bil (RM146bil) a
year. And palm oil products are used in, well, pretty much everything –
from confectionery and cosmetics, to industrial products, biofuels and
feedstock.
But back in the 70s, Yusof says it was mostly only used in soaps or margarine.
He added: “Even in Malaysia, the oil we used for cooking was coconut oil.”
Having a basic understanding of the chemical composition of palm oil however, the team at Porim knew they were onto something.
“Palm
oil is a very stable frying oil, so we explored this. At the time, the
task ahead was not only to develop the product, but create new markets
for it by educating consumers about its advantages.
“So
we did research to characterise palm oil, to turn it into an acceptable
quality for food use, and to expand its potential applications.”
Porim’s findings were shared with instant noodle manufacturers in China and Japan.
“We told them palm oil would provide the best shelf life for products, and that it is cheaper to produce.”
Today, palm oil is a common ingredient in instant noodles, and China alone consumes about 42 billion packets per year.
Looking
back at his younger years, Yusof feels that chemical engineering, a
subject with broad-based applications, was a smart choice.
Now 65, he helms the MPOC, an organisation formed to protect and promote the interests of the palm oil sector.
The
necessity for such an association became apparent as soon as the crop’s
early successes led to a backlash from major competitors.
In
1986, palm oil took over a substantial share of the Pakistani market
for vegetable oils, at the expense of the United States. That same year,
exports of the oil into the US doubled, leading the American Soyabean
Association to launch a series of anti-palm oil campaigns in 1987.
Despite its recent dip in prices, Malaysian palm oil has been a success story which Yusof is proud to have been a part of.
In
2011, Malaysian palm oil accounted for 17.6 million tonnes, or 24.1% of
the global trade in oils and fats, but Yusof remembers when he first
joined the newly established Porim. He was the only Malaysian in an
institute headed and dominated by British scientists at the time. And
the team had their work cut out for them but there was a pioneering
spirit to lay firm the groundwork.
“We rented
shophouses in Ampang Jaya and Dato Keramat in Selangor to set up
temporary labs to get our research projects going, and then a few floors
at Wisma Central in downtown Kuala Lumpur for office space,” he
remembered.
Aside from developing and diversifying
downstream applications through refined and fractionated oils and
oleochemicals, one of the institute’s earliest breakthroughs was to
revolutionise palm oil milling technology. Up until then, cooking the
palm fruit bunches involved putting them in cages and into a high
pressure cooker.
“It was a dirty, dangerous process, people got killed by the high-pressure steam,” Yusof explained.
What the institute did was to come up with a new, automated way of cooking the fruit bunches.
“Our
idea was simple. Instead of using high pressure to cook the fruit, we
decided to try a mechanised conveyor system, rollers and a cooking
tunnel.
The new automated system was clean, tidy
and so successful that it reduced manpower by 50-60% and created a new
revenue stream for the country through the commercialisation and sales
of the technology to millers all over the world.
Healthy oils
Yusof
is recollecting these stories while in his large, sparsely decorated
office at MPOC’s headquarters just off the Damansara–Puchong Expressway
in Petaling Jaya. There is a big desk piled with neat stacks of files at
one end. At the other, next to the door sits a small display table
decorated with Smart Balance spreads and cooking oils – a brand
identified by its blend of healthy oils, developed by researchers at the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board and marketed successfully in the United
States.
Yusof’s three decades or so in the
industry have taken him from the role of divisional director at Porim,
to director general, a role he continued to occupy for a period after
the institute’s transformation into its current incarnation: the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board.
Today, Yusof blogs,
tweets (about palm oil) and just recently, was conferred the honour of a
Senior Fellow at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM), for which he
served as president a few years back.
He can come
across as pretty intense when it comes to his thoughts on global palm
oil issues, especially when talking about NGOs and the anti-palm oil
lobby. But for a man who has not only witnessed, but played a
significant role in nurturing the crop from zero-base to one of the
country’s most important exports, is that any wonder?
Yusof
says palm oil is an industry in which one cannot afford to be
complacent. He cites the price collapse of 2001 as an example, and
shares how he was involved in crisis management then.
“That was a dark time. Farmers were getting around RM80 per tonne, compared to the RM400-RM500 they earn today.
“It was like there was no more value left in the fruit bunches,” he remembers.
They
countered the situation with a new strategy: by burning palm oil in
power plants and creating replanting schemes to cut out supply.
“Within a year, that helped prices to recover, and I record that as one of my contributions.”
An
important part of the job he says, is trying to anticipate and be
prepared for possible events of the future. This requires smart,
innovative mindsets in science, economics and agriculture.
Yusof sees the importance of creating the infrastructure, not just to nurture, but to identify and work with fresh young talent.
During
his tenure as president of ASM, he introduced a number of initiatives,
such as the Top Research Scientist Malaysia project, the Mega Science
project and he proposed the formation of the Mahathir Science Award
Foundation.
The idea was to identify the movers
and shakers, using these initiatives to lure them out of the woodwork
and provide networking opportunities and platforms to work together.
He sees science as essential to driving the economy forward. Right now, the economy is caught within the middle income trap.
“There
isn’t enough technology to base our economy on, to move forward. We’ve
been importing these manufacturing processes rather than creating enough
of our own.”
He added: “Compared with other
countries, the quantum of research and investment in science R&D in
Malaysia has been low, due to certain priorities of development and
social engineering.”
On being granted the
much-coveted Senior Fellowship at ASM, Yusof said he values the
recognition. It’s a milestone, for sure. But somehow one gets the
feeling that much more lies ahead.
Source : The Star
Thursday, 23 Jan, 2014
Palm Oil Council CEO on Cream of the Croppers
Tan Sri Yusof Basiron of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council has achieved much for the industry. – RAJA FAISAL HISHAN/The Star
Malaysian
Palm Oil Council (MPOC) CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron reminisces about the
early days of the oil palm industry and its growth in our country.
HIS
parents were peasant farmers from Rembau, Negri Sembilan. Like many
rural Malay folk in the 1950s, they worked on modest smallholdings
producing rice and other food crops. The lush Malaysian landscape was
then dotted with tin mines and rubber estates, the biggest dollar
earners at the time.
Six decades on, Malaysian
Palm Oil Council CEO Tan Sri Yusof Basiron has stayed true to his family
trade. And today, the country’s landscape is dominated by a new
commodity, palm oil.
Through his work on the crop, Yusof has made his mark.
Yusof’s
parents wanted him to have a good education, and as a teen, he excelled
at chemistry and mathematics. This got him into a prestigious military
college; he later obtained a government scholarship for his
undergraduate studies.
Yusof wasn’t particularly
passionate about chemical engineering, his chosen field, and despite his
successes, he insists he wasn’t particularly ambitious either. It was
simply a case of going with the flow.
His first
job at the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia led to a post-graduate
degree in rubber technology, after which he joined the newly established
Palm Oil Research Institute (Porim), in 1979. And the rest, as they
say, is history.
As Malaysia’s economy chugged its
way through the 80s, transforming itself from being largely
agricultural based into one driven by industrial growth, Yusof became
part of the machinery that fashioned palm oil into a major player in the
economy.
By 1980, synthetic rubber had eaten into
the market share of Malaysia’s star crop, natural rubber, taking over
70% of the world’s total rubber consumption. And in 1985, a crash in
world tin prices sealed that commodity’s status as a sunset industry. It
was time to diversify. And Malaysia was placing its bets on palm oil.
Creating new markets
When Yusof first started with Porim, the oil palm industry was small.
“About two million tonnes of palm oil were produced a year,” recalls Yusof.
But the chemical engineer in him allowed Yusof to believe in the product and its greater potential.
“We
knew that the world population was increasing. We knew that demand for
edible oil was going to increase. And we knew that we could grow (more)
palm oil.
“What we weren’t sure about was whether the world would actually consume palm oil if we ramped up production.”
It’s
strange to think back on a time when palm oil only played a small role
in the global economy. Today, it’s worth about US$44bil (RM146bil) a
year. And palm oil products are used in, well, pretty much everything –
from confectionery and cosmetics, to industrial products, biofuels and
feedstock.
But back in the 70s, Yusof says it was mostly only used in soaps or margarine.
He added: “Even in Malaysia, the oil we used for cooking was coconut oil.”
Having a basic understanding of the chemical composition of palm oil however, the team at Porim knew they were onto something.
“Palm
oil is a very stable frying oil, so we explored this. At the time, the
task ahead was not only to develop the product, but create new markets
for it by educating consumers about its advantages.
“So
we did research to characterise palm oil, to turn it into an acceptable
quality for food use, and to expand its potential applications.”
Porim’s findings were shared with instant noodle manufacturers in China and Japan.
“We told them palm oil would provide the best shelf life for products, and that it is cheaper to produce.”
Today, palm oil is a common ingredient in instant noodles, and China alone consumes about 42 billion packets per year.
Looking
back at his younger years, Yusof feels that chemical engineering, a
subject with broad-based applications, was a smart choice.
Now 65, he helms the MPOC, an organisation formed to protect and promote the interests of the palm oil sector.
The
necessity for such an association became apparent as soon as the crop’s
early successes led to a backlash from major competitors.
In
1986, palm oil took over a substantial share of the Pakistani market
for vegetable oils, at the expense of the United States. That same year,
exports of the oil into the US doubled, leading the American Soyabean
Association to launch a series of anti-palm oil campaigns in 1987.
Despite its recent dip in prices, Malaysian palm oil has been a success story which Yusof is proud to have been a part of.
In
2011, Malaysian palm oil accounted for 17.6 million tonnes, or 24.1% of
the global trade in oils and fats, but Yusof remembers when he first
joined the newly established Porim. He was the only Malaysian in an
institute headed and dominated by British scientists at the time. And
the team had their work cut out for them but there was a pioneering
spirit to lay firm the groundwork.
“We rented
shophouses in Ampang Jaya and Dato Keramat in Selangor to set up
temporary labs to get our research projects going, and then a few floors
at Wisma Central in downtown Kuala Lumpur for office space,” he
remembered.
Aside from developing and diversifying
downstream applications through refined and fractionated oils and
oleochemicals, one of the institute’s earliest breakthroughs was to
revolutionise palm oil milling technology. Up until then, cooking the
palm fruit bunches involved putting them in cages and into a high
pressure cooker.
“It was a dirty, dangerous process, people got killed by the high-pressure steam,” Yusof explained.
What the institute did was to come up with a new, automated way of cooking the fruit bunches.
“Our
idea was simple. Instead of using high pressure to cook the fruit, we
decided to try a mechanised conveyor system, rollers and a cooking
tunnel.
The new automated system was clean, tidy
and so successful that it reduced manpower by 50-60% and created a new
revenue stream for the country through the commercialisation and sales
of the technology to millers all over the world.
Healthy oils
Yusof
is recollecting these stories while in his large, sparsely decorated
office at MPOC’s headquarters just off the Damansara–Puchong Expressway
in Petaling Jaya. There is a big desk piled with neat stacks of files at
one end. At the other, next to the door sits a small display table
decorated with Smart Balance spreads and cooking oils – a brand
identified by its blend of healthy oils, developed by researchers at the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board and marketed successfully in the United
States.
Yusof’s three decades or so in the
industry have taken him from the role of divisional director at Porim,
to director general, a role he continued to occupy for a period after
the institute’s transformation into its current incarnation: the
Malaysian Palm Oil Board.
Today, Yusof blogs,
tweets (about palm oil) and just recently, was conferred the honour of a
Senior Fellow at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia (ASM), for which he
served as president a few years back.
He can come
across as pretty intense when it comes to his thoughts on global palm
oil issues, especially when talking about NGOs and the anti-palm oil
lobby. But for a man who has not only witnessed, but played a
significant role in nurturing the crop from zero-base to one of the
country’s most important exports, is that any wonder?
Yusof
says palm oil is an industry in which one cannot afford to be
complacent. He cites the price collapse of 2001 as an example, and
shares how he was involved in crisis management then.
“That was a dark time. Farmers were getting around RM80 per tonne, compared to the RM400-RM500 they earn today.
“It was like there was no more value left in the fruit bunches,” he remembers.
They
countered the situation with a new strategy: by burning palm oil in
power plants and creating replanting schemes to cut out supply.
“Within a year, that helped prices to recover, and I record that as one of my contributions.”
An
important part of the job he says, is trying to anticipate and be
prepared for possible events of the future. This requires smart,
innovative mindsets in science, economics and agriculture.
Yusof sees the importance of creating the infrastructure, not just to nurture, but to identify and work with fresh young talent.
During
his tenure as president of ASM, he introduced a number of initiatives,
such as the Top Research Scientist Malaysia project, the Mega Science
project and he proposed the formation of the Mahathir Science Award
Foundation.
The idea was to identify the movers
and shakers, using these initiatives to lure them out of the woodwork
and provide networking opportunities and platforms to work together.
He sees science as essential to driving the economy forward. Right now, the economy is caught within the middle income trap.
“There
isn’t enough technology to base our economy on, to move forward. We’ve
been importing these manufacturing processes rather than creating enough
of our own.”
He added: “Compared with other
countries, the quantum of research and investment in science R&D in
Malaysia has been low, due to certain priorities of development and
social engineering.”
On being granted the
much-coveted Senior Fellowship at ASM, Yusof said he values the
recognition. It’s a milestone, for sure. But somehow one gets the
feeling that much more lies ahead.
Source : The Star
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