Jakarta: The palm oil industry players have stated that the negative campaigns against palm oil are currently targeting the millennials who consumes most of palm oil based products in Indonesia.
Wulan Suling, the head of corporate communication of Sinarmas Agribusiness & Food said on Saturday that the palm oil has been accused of being not friendly to the environment, despite the fact that Indonesian oil palm plantations and palm oil mills have been operated under the principles of sustainability, which care about people and environment.
“Based on survey, most of teenagers are influenced by the negative campaigns against palm oil. That’s why we’re intensifying positive campaigns among the public, including companies’ workers,” she said.
Wulan noted that palm oil and derivative products play a very significant role in producing food and other necessity products in everyday life. The palm oil is the raw material for producing cooking oil, shampoo, soap, detergents, cosmetics, energy products, various kinds of personal care products like hand sanitizers, and other food and feed products.
“All of the products can be traced back to the palm oil, which is grown sustainably without damaging the environment,” she told the webinar of Digitalk Sawit, which was organized by the oil palm plantation fund management board (BPDPKS).
Through the webinar, BPDPKS urged the millennials to know about the benefits of palm oil in everyday life and should not be easily influenced by the negative campaigns.
Djono Albar, a palm oil industry player who is a participant of the webinar, said that millennials should understand the palm oil industry, which provides many benefits for human life and give a big contribution to the national economy.
He said that digitalks will help educate the general public, especially millennials, students, startups, and other youngsters, on the palm oil industry, so that they will get deeper understanding on palm oil and derivative products and see more opportunities created by the palm oil and derivative products.
He said that palm oil can be also used as raw material to produce biofuel products which are more friendly to the environment, and support the government policy to diversify the national energy sources away from fossil fuels to the renewable energy sources.
“The biofuel products are environmentally friendly and can become alternative energy sources, which are currently dominated by fossil fuels,” he said.
Agatha Priscilla, a millennial who attended the webinar, admitted that she did not know much about palm oil before attending the webinar. “I only know that the palm oil is only used as raw material to produce cooking oil. I was told it is also found in cosmetics. But apparently, what I knew about palm oil was just a little. Now, I know that almost all of human necessities are produced with the use of palm oil,” she said. (*)
Source: antaranews.com | Featured image wholefoodsmagazine.com
