This study is not worth the paper it is written on as it was cleverly designed to study only high-yield cultivation of oil palm to the exclusion of competing edible oilseed crops and is fatally flawed for 2 reasons:

First, the study uses high resolution satellite imagery to evaluate carbon emission for lands "targeted for palm oil plantations. Indonesia's traditional slash and burn culture of land clearing which would have accounted for the bulk of any visible and verifiable pollutants/carbon emission in any satellite image is largely ignored and not even mentioned in the study!

Secondly, in our view, Prof Curran and her team conveniently used the fact that only 20 per cent of the palm oil land is cultivated to extrapolate and manipulate the results. Any calculation of potential carbon emission resulting from future cultivation of the remaining 80% land remains pure conjecture at least so long as slash and burn pollutants are not factored into the calculation!

In singling out palm oil and only palm oil to measure carbon emission to the exclusion of other edible oilseed crops, the researchers have ensured a selectively skewed report!

For the study to have any legitimacy, it has to be designed to include competing edible oil crops such as soy, rapeseed, corn and sunflower. In the interest of true scientific impartiality and integrity it would have been imperative to consider how these competing crops, including palm oil would compare in the "destruction" of virgin tropical rainforests. The dominant scientific standards for scientific studies of this nature would require that alternatives be included for a truly legitimate and authoritative picture to emerge.

As things stand, we can only postulate as to the reasons for the selective exclusion of other edible oilseeds from the study. Could it be that the researchers know that the other oilseeds would fare even worse than palm oil if they were to be included in the study? Consider this. If a competing edible oilseed like soy was planted instead of palm oil, 10 times more land would have to be cleared as palm oil with its current yield of 4-5 metric tons per hectare already exceeds soy by a multiple of ten! In fact, best in class plantations are already producing 8 metric tons and current R&D points to a potential yield of 20 metric tons per hectare! In contrast, rapeseed yields a paltry 0.69 metric tons per hectare, sunflower a meagre 0.33 and soy a miniscule 0.37 metric tons per hectare! More devastattingly, these palm oil competitors have reached their max genetic potential whilst palm oil is just starting!

Logically, this means that palm oil requires far less land to produce the same amount of oil as its competitors. The fact that palm oil is grown on only 0.23% of the world's agricultural land and yet produce 30% of global edible oil output should clue in any objective observer as to the real reasons for the strange assault on probably the most benign edible oilseed crop, environmentally speaking!

Italian civil libertarian group, Libertiamo had blown the cover of the planners and perpetrators of these campaigns! Says Libertiamo, these campaigns are "funded by the Office of the Environment Directorate of the European Commission (EC) ostensibly to improve environmental practices in developing countries". In reality, the millions of Euros poured into these palm oil campaigns, noted Libertiamo, are designed to protect the EU's own indigenous edible oilseed industries like rapeseed and sunflower which are hapless in the face of and unable to compete with the hyper yielding palm oil! To make matters worse, the EC is aware that the anti-palm oil campaigns are based almost entirely on "manufactured and false evidence"!

I guess "Big Oil" comes in small economy sizes too. Sorry, I for one don't buy what you're selling. Too oily for my taste.