Greenpeace accuses Fonterra of contributing to deforestation

Palm production is growing fast fueled by demand for palm oil from the food, cosmetics and biofuel industries, but Greenpeace claims this growth is coming at a high environmental cost. It says resulting deforestation and the draining of peatlands is contributing to rising carbon emissions and the destruction of endangered animal habitats.

Now the environmental campaigner is directing its attack beyond the palm oil industry to palm kernel animal feed, which is made from the kernel of the fruit of the palm plant.

Palm-based animal feed​

Greenpeace has singled out Fonterra for criticism because it owns half owns of RD1, a New Zealand-based importer of Palm Kernel Expeller (PKE) for animal feed. The campaigner also claimed Fonterra encourages the intensive use of animal feeds like PKE in New Zealand.

“Fonterra is implicated in Indonesian and Malaysian rainforest destruction, dead orangutans and driving global gas emissions,” ​concluded Greenpeace.

Fonterra was not contactable in time for publication but Federated Farmers, which represents New Zealand based farmers, released a statement dismissing the Greenpeace accusations.

Waste by-product ​

Federated Farmers said palm kernel oil is a waste by-product with almost no commercial value, the use of which does not cause the destruction of tropical forests.

“Not one millimetre of forest is being cleared just to feed dairy cows,”​ said John Hartnell, Federated Farmers biosecurity spokesperson. “Palm kernel extract is a waste by-product left over from the processing of palm oil for consumer products.”​

Hartnell said palm kernel is of so little value that the alternative to recycling it into supplementary feed is to burn it. He said it is therefore misleading to suggest that using the waste to create animal feed is damaging to the environment.

“Palm plantations aren’t created just to generate a waste by-product, just as newspapers don’t exist solely to support recycling,” ​said the spokesperson.

Federated Farmers also accused Greenpeace of misrepresented the scale of PKE use in New Zealand.

Greenpeace claimed Fonterra is pushing farmers to use hundreds of tonnes of the palm-based animal feed. It said that imports of PKE to New Zealand have risen 2700 per cent to 1.1 million tonnes over the past decade making New Zealand an importer of one quarter of the world supply of PKE.

But Federated Farmers said 95 percent of New Zealand’s cows are still fed on grass.