Cancer-Causing Substances Detected in 60 Biscuits

On Monday, the Hong Kong Consumer Council announced that it has detected alleged cancer-causing substances in all 60 biscuit products sampled. The consumer watchdog revealed that at least one of the main chemical culprits—glycidol and acrylamide—are present in each products tested including Hup Seng Special Cream Crackers, Ritz Crackers Cheese Flavoured Sandwich, and Oreo Mini Oreo Original. 3-MCPD was also detected in 56 products tested. The problems are associated with food manufacturing processes involving high temperatures.

Source: SCMP (Oct 2021)

51 products sampled were also found to have high fat, sugar, and/or sodium contents. 24 products also have misleading nutrition labels

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Our comment

The news has predictably ignited food safety worries from Hong Kong on snacks with levels of acrylamide (to do with potato and other starch, mitigate by washing ingredient) and glycidol (to do with palm oil, mitigate by washing and/or chemical processing), with a problem of sugar and salt similarly mentioned. The findings has also triggered a reaction from health authorities in Malaysia (and probably elsewhere soon) to do testing too.

How many biscuits to be at risk? For a 60kg person, the industry says 18kg biscuits, presumably on a typical amount of the contentious compounds. However, on the worst findings, the media is pointing to a max of three and eight pieces a day for a child and adult respectively. This should also provide a push for high food grade ingredients.

PalmTrack: A Month's Reflection

It’s been a busy month for PalmTrack—from observations about vessel movements to weather outlooks, PalmTrack continues to offer exclusive updates surrounding the palm products trade. Some more recent topics we’ve written about include an alert for a La Niña phenomenon in the coming months; major palm oil players who have been using containers are switching to bulk shipments; the conclusion of a near three-week observation of the ports in the Dumai area.

ASMC (Oct 6, 2021): “September to November (SON) season rainfall anomaly composites (mm/day) for El Niño (left) and La Niña (right) years. Brown (green) shades show regions of drier (wetter) conditions. Note that this anomaly composite was generated using a limited number of El Niño and La Niña occurrences between 1979 and 2017 and therefore should be interpreted with caution (data: NOAA CPC CAMS_OPI).”

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RSPO: Malaysia National Interpretation 2019 and ILO Indicators on Labour

Yesterday, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) held a short webinar to refresh its Malaysian members on labour rights defined under its Principles and Criteria 2018 (P&C 2018).

One of the important points RSPO reminded its members about was the scope of Criterion 2.1 under the P&C 2018, which compels its members to observe “all applicable local, national, and ratified international laws and regulations.” The Criterion states that all members are to comply with “laws made pursuant to a country’s obligations under international laws or conventions,” such as the ILO Core Conventions and the United Nations (UN) Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. It also reminded members that “where countries have provisions to respect customary law, these will be taken into account.”

In the context of labour rights in Malaysia, standards like the ILO’s Forced Labour Convention would be highly relevant.

During the Q&A, RSPO clarified that its certification process will be only audited against RSPO standards.

MOSTA: Prospects of IR 4.0 and Enabling Technologies for Oil Palm Industry

Last Tuesday, the Malaysian Oil Scientists’ & Technologists’ Association (MOSTA) held its annual conference where experts and companies share their scientific progress in the oils and fats field. This year, the one-day event focused on oil palm plantations and was split into three IR 4.0-related themes:

1. Precision agriculture: This system was touted as a way for more efficient agricultural practices, allowing for better science-based decision making, e.g. assessing land suitability. At least one panelist mentioned climate change as a reason for data-driven precision agriculture practices.

2. Farming technologies: There is a notable highlight on drones. Sime Darby claimed that its multi-drone operations will be perfected in the next three years for better parallel spraying and opined that smaller plantations may soon have access to drones-as-a-service as the usage increases throughout the industry.

3. Milling technologies: Panelists were emphasising on the importance of digitising milling practices. Some of the opportunities for growth in this regard include incorporating big cloud computing in the Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (CAMS) and adopting real-time mobile platforms for mill supervision and inspections.

Source: Chen Zi Yan/Applied Agricultural Resources (AAR; 2021). Mr Chen Zi Yan of AAR presented his team’s assessment of the potential economic costs involved in three different insecticide spraying processes at an 180 ha oil palm plantation.

An interesting observation during the concluding panel discussion: in stark contrast to the overall placid progress-updating event, several panelists voiced frustration over the fact that many of these advancements are apparently contained within corporations; researchers are still struggling to obtain adequate cooperation from the private sector to come up with new tech that would benefit the industry as a whole. Additionally, it was pointed out that there is a shortage of required experts, such as drone pilots and robotics engineers, which will become an increasingly significant concern as more and more plantations adopt newer technologies.

ChinaDaily: Jabs Key to Malaysia's Tourism Revival

Last week, ChinaDaily published an interesting piece by Prime Sarmiento on how vaccinations are the key to reviving Malaysia’s struggling tourism industry. The article follows news that the government is mulling plans for a travel bubble to Langkawi, a quintessential tourism region, for fully vaccinated individuals (note: the bubble comes into effect on 16 Sep 2021). Several experts have voiced cautious optimism for this move since, as explained by People’s Health Forum’s Dr Micahel Jeyakumar Devaraj, it is now no longer possible to maintain a zero-case policy in the country.

Photo: The Langkawi Sky Bridge by Manish Tulaskar/Unsplashed. Known as the Jewel of the Kedah state, Langkawi is one of Malaysia’s wildly popular tourist destinations. In 2019, the archipelago recorded 3.92 million tourist arrivals, raking in an estimated revenue of RM1.7 billion (USD410 million) to nearly 5,000 businesses operating on the island. Approximately 70% of Langkawi’s residents are reported to rely on the tourism sector for income.

Deakin University’s Dr Catherine Bennet emphasised the need for vaccinations, explaining that restricting travel to only fully-vaccinated individuals would lower the risk of serious illnesses even in a case of infections. This would mean continuously pushing for more and more people to get the jab—Segi Enam Advisor’s Khor Yu Leng has pointed out that this may not be a significant issue for Malaysia considering that vaccine hesitancy is relatively low in the country.

NEW! Khor Reports' PalmTrack Kicks Off

September is a month of a couple of new things for Khor Reports—the first was our PolTracker: Malaysia—1 Sep 2021, an online-view only report tracking hot topics and themes in Malaysia’s political economy and backed by data from social media and human-sourced intel.

This time, we are shifting our focus back to the staple of our work: the economics of the palm oil industry. Khor Reports is proud to present PalmTrack!

In PalmTrack, we offer exclusive updates surrounding the palm products trade. Written by Khor Reports/Segi Enam Advisor’s Khor Yu Leng and Nadirah Sharif, we aim to provide info-data driven insights with reference to granular trade statistics, near-time shipment/cargo information, and human-source market intelligence. PalmTrack mainly covers key Indonesian ports.

At the moment, subscription is free! Members will have access to relevant research data and news stories, including trade updates from key export countries and reports on sustainability and geopolitical conflicts. We also offer more granular trade and vessel data mentioned in our reports for corporate subscribers.

Interested? Subscribe by clicking the button below! Questions? Feel free to reach out to us at research@segi-enam.com.

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Indonesia Ends Cooperation with Norway on Emissions Reduction Plan

After more than 10 years in effect, Indonesia has terminated its 2010 Letter of Intent (LOI) with Norway, ending the countries’ collaborative efforts under the REDD+ initiative, i.e. reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emission from deforestation and forest degradation. According to the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the termination was due to the “lack of concrete progress on the implementation of the obligation of the government of Norway to deliver the results-based payment for Indonesia’s achievement in reducing 11.2 million CO2eq greenhouse gas emissions in 2016/17.” Indonesian Deputy Minister for Environment and Forestry Alue Dohong similarly cited a lack of payment from Norway—despite agreeing in 2019 to remit approximately USD56 million—as a possible reason behind the termination.

Norway has since responded by reaffirming its support to Indonesia in latter’s efforts to protect its forests and peatlands.

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Our comment

This new development has certainly led to some raised eyebrows. Recent data shows that Indonesia has been making headway in forest protection, recording a steadily declining deforestation rate in the last four years.

Together with the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA), Segi Enam Advisors has explored Indonesia’s success story in the Haze Outlook 2021. Indonesia lost 115,459 hectares to deforestation in 2020, a historic low considering the millions of hectares lost in the previous years as well as the generally increasing trend of deforestation happening globally despite the Covid-19 pandemic. The archipelago’s achievement meant it slipped from its regular top three place for primary forest loss countries to fourth in the World Research Institute (WRI)’s global forest review for the first time since 2000.

From SIIA/Segi Enam Advisors (2021): “Official deforestation rate for Indonesia and forward targets, 1990-2030. Note: Forest areas refers to zones that should legally be maintained as forests, while non-forest areas are zones that lack such legal status (but may still have tree cover). The spikes in deforestation correspond to previous severe transboundary haze incidents, linked to weather conditions and economic factors such as the Asian Financial Crisis and growing demand for vegetable oils (including for biofuels). Source: Official data and targets (annualised), KLHK.”

As for GHG emissions, agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) typically generates at least half of Indonesia’s annual emissions, recording approximately 67% in 2015 and approximately 50–60% in a more normal year). Official data puts average emission levels from the forestry sector between 2000–2018 at about 439.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e); the level is 214.0 million tonnes of CO2e if emissions from peat fires are excluded.

To get more perspective, we spoke to a specialist on regional climate change policy. “Indonesia received some payments. But we have been hearing about their dissatisfaction.” It looks like payments have been significantly below the headline figure, were there issues on milestones or other? “It seems to be about the use of payments.”

From SIIA/Segi Enam Advisors (2021): “Indonesian national GHG emissions (including peat fires), 2000-2016. Note: Graph tracks Industrial Process and Product Use (IPPU), Forestry and Other Land Use (FOLU), and other sources of emissions. Source: UNFCCC.”

research@segi-enam.com | 13 Sep 2021, 3 p.m.

NEW! Khor Reports' PolTracker: Malaysia—1 Sep 2021

Debuting under our brand new—and long in the making—Products page, Khor Reports is proud to present our first PolTrackers report on the Malaysian political economy scene!

The [SAMPLE] Poltracker: Malaysia—1 Sep 2021 tracks hot topics and themes relevant to the Southeast Asian nation based on data obtained from social media and human-sourced intel. The 6–8 paged briefing includes: (1) questions about Prime Minister Ismail Sabri’s taking over for an embattled Muhyiddin; (2) Twitter Malaysia, e.g. hashtag protests and netizen reaction to the “new” cabinet; (3) eye on the opposition response, e.g. Mahathir's Council or Muhyiddin reform deal; (4) Covid worries persist; and (5) a Q&A session, including a 20-min session for subscribers.

Interested? Just add the report to your cart (it’s free!) and check out. Request for access and allow us one (1) working day to verify your email address before granting you access to the report.

Please note that the document is view online only.

BFM: Politics Roundup—Vote of Confidence, Muhyiddin's Appointment

It has been almost three weeks since the appointment of Ismail Sabri as Prime Minister, making him Malaysia’s second premier appointed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Together with parliamentary consultant Maha Balakrishnan and Merdeka Center programme director Ben Suffian, Segi Enam Advisors principal Khor Yu Leng joined BFM’s Inside Story for a 40-minute discussion surrounding the various political upheavals—and their long-term implications—the country has recently experienced: Politics Roundup—Vote of Confidence, Muhyiddin's Appointment

We round up on political developments by looking at the the ramifications of the Attorney General saying that there’s no need for a vote of confidence in the upcoming Dewan Rakyat sitting. Then, we explore what the larger impact of former PM Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin being appointed the chairperson for the National Recovery Council will have. And finally - we talk about what this all says about Ismail Sabri’s administration.

Image Source: zmpixes, Shutterstock; produced by: Tasha Fusil, Alia Zefri, Loo Juosie; presented by: Sharmilla Ganesan, Lee Chwi Lynn

Aquaponics: What's That?

The search for more sustainable, environmentally-friendly farming methods has been well underway within the agricultural community, further motivated by growing concerns about food security amidst the looming threat of both climate change and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. One promising concept that has been shyly popping up in recent discussions is aquaponics.

Aquaponics is essentially a practice combining both aquaculture and hydroponics. The idea is to create a symbiotic relationship by growing both fish and plants in the same space—fish manure fertilises the plants with nutrients beneficial for growth; in turn, the plants purify the water which is then pumped back into the fish pond. Aquaponics thus presents an interesting avenue for sustainable, eco-friendly farming, especially in areas where the resources required for more traditional agriculture activities are limited.

Due to the absence of soil, much of the benefits reaped from an aquaponic environment is similar to that of its hydroponics or aeroponics-based cousins, with possible added bonuses. Crop yield and productivity from soilless cultivation systems, for example, are generally higher than their soiled counterparts, with aquaponics having the added advantage of a more natural source of nutrients courtesy of the fish (Trees.com, 2021; Agritecture, 2019; Gashgari et al., 2018).

Pak choi at the Kundasang Aquafarm (Kundasang Aquafarm, 2018)

Still, aquaponics is not the most popular agricultural practice out there, probably owing to factors such as the relatively expensive and complex start-up. However, some places in the world have turned to aquaponics farming as a continuous, sustainable source of fresh produce: an aquaponics lab in Berkshire County, Massachusetts plays a dual role of providing the community with almost 1,000 heads of lettuce a week and as an educational site for inmates; the Malaysian farming scene is seeing a rise in aquaponics spearheaded by small companies/projects such as The Urban Farm, E-Farm, Kundasang Aquafarm, Homegrown Goodness, and Aquaville Asia; German-based desert-tech company Desertfoods International has partnered with Integrated Aquaculture Ltd to establish South Africa’s largest aquaponics facility, which aims to generate 200 tonnes of fish and vegetables annually.