World Growth Warning Over UK Government Palm Oil Enquiry

Misleading Anti-Palm Oil Claims Foster Poverty and Undermine Efforts to Avert the Looming Global Food Crisis

LONDON, September 2, 2010 - Today, World Growth Chairman Ambassador Alan Oxley warned of the
consequences for the world's poor of blindly treating as fact erroneous and
widely circulated claims about palm oil in a letter to Mrs. Caroline Spelman
(www.worldgrowth.org/assets/files/WG_Letter_to_Caroline_Spelman_MP_9_10(1).pdf),
the UK Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

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The letter follows the first Global Business of Biodiversity Symposium in
London where Mrs. Spelman announced that the UK government will fund a
research project on Britain's consumption of palm oil. World Growth expressed
concern that the starting point for this research is a misconception that the
palm oil industry is currently unsustainable. In fact palm oil is the most
sustainable vegetable oil in the world. It generates almost 10 times the
energy that it consumes and has a higher yield than other crop-based
oilseeds.

Citing support from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation
and Africa's first female Nobel Laureate, Wangari Maathai, Mr. Oxley's letter
states that poverty is the leading cause of deforestation in developing
nations, an inconvenient truth for the radical environmental NGOs who intone
with environmental officials claim that palm oil drives deforestation in
Southeast Asia. He also warned that discouraging trade and growth of palm
oil, a food staple in the developing world, would hinder efforts to reduce
poverty.

In closing, Mr. Oxley urged Mrs. Spelman, "to ensure the enquiry
encompasses the vital development dimension of palm oil, considers the
sustainability issues objectively and recognizes the importance of expanding
palm oil production to ensure supply is adequate to address the looming
global food crisis and meet the rapidly growing demand in the developing
world."

To view the World Growth letter to Secretary of State Spelman, click here
(www.worldgrowth.org/assets/files/WG_Letter_to_Caroline_Spelman_MP_9_10(1).pdf).

To speak with World Growth's experts, please email media@worldgrowth.org
or call +1-866-467-7200.

World Growth is a non-profit, non-governmental organization established
to expand the research, information, advocacy, and other resources to improve
the economic conditions and living standards in developing and transitional
countries. At World Growth, we embrace the age of globalization and the power
of free trade to eradicate poverty and create jobs and opportunities. World
Growth supports the production of palm oil and the use of forestry as a means
to promote economic growth, reduce poverty and mitigate greenhouse gas
emissions. World Growth believes a robust cultivation of palm oil and
forestry provides an effective means of environmental stewardship that can
serve as the catalyst for increasing social and economic development. For
more information on World Growth, visit www.worldgrowth.org.

World Growth, media at worldgrowth.org, +1-866-467-7200