Doppa demands ‘no risk' exemption from EU for indigenous Dayak palm oil farmers

Borneo Post

30-05-2025

Data from Sarawak shows 48,000 independent smallholders are actively involved in supplying the 85 mills that process their oil palm harvests. – Bernama photo
KUCHING (May 30): The Dayak Oil Palm Planters Association (Doppa) is calling on the European Union (EU) to grant a 'no risk' exemption for indigenous farmers in Sarawak, following the EU's decision to classify Malaysia as Standard Risk under its deforestation regulations.
The livelihoods of the indigenous people in Sarawak who depend on farming will be affected if the EU fails to take into account the negative impacts of the listing on the indigenous people in Sarawak, Doppa President Napolean R. Ningkos said in a press statement today.
'Doppa sees the EU as an unjust body that failed to engage directly with those most affected by the regulations and relied instead on misinformation created by third parties to exclude smallholders in Sarawak from the EU market,' he claimed.
Data from Sarawak shows 48,000 independent smallholders are actively involved in supplying the 85 mills that process their oil palm harvests.
'Our concern is that while established big plantation companies may have the ability to provide proof of traceability for corporate oil palm plantations, the amount of paperwork required under Standard Risk may push corporate mills that supply the EU market to cut off independent smallholders,' he stressed.
He also criticised the EU's reliance on satellite mapping to monitor compliance, arguing that such technology is flawed when applied to indigenous lands in Sarawak.
'There is zero risk of deforestation for palm oil by Dayak farmers in Sarawak. All of our farms, whether existing or to be planted after the compliance date on December 2025, will be on old farmlands.'
'Satellite mapping is faulty in that it may detect activity on overgrown fallow lands as new deforestation,' he said.
'The EU must be informed that the indigenous Dayaks of Sarawak were largely subsistence farmers who practised shifting cultivation before switching to oil palm cultivation in the 1990s.
'Our farms can only be cultivated after land titles are granted under the Sarawak Land Code, which recognises Native Customary Rights (NCR) as legitimate land ownership. The baseline for obtaining a land title is that our forefathers must have already developed the land,' he explained.
He urged the EU to recognise that no forests were cleared for oil palm, cocoa, or rubber farms operated by indigenous Dayak smallholders.
'The oil palm fruits produced by Dayak farmers in Sarawak represent one of the clearest examples of a no-deforestation supply. Yet, the EU's regulations threaten to remove us from their market,' he said.
Doppa insists that granting a 'no risk' exemption is the only fair way to ensure indigenous farmers are not punished by regulations they are unequipped to comply with.