Golden Age of Palm Oil

18 October 2010
The other day on ASTRO, there was a documentary and interview with Datuk Seri Lim Keng Yaik, the former Minister of Primary Industries on Palm Oil. Despite his retirement from the industry years ago, this man is still passionate about our Golden Crop. My personal opinion is that he had been the champion of palm oil during his Ministerial days, after taking over from YB Datuk Paul Leong Kee Siong during the mid 1980's. In fact, the period of mid 80's till 2005 was the golden age of palm oil, to my mind. It was during this period that PORIM (now MPOB) made such a big impact in the edible oils and fats industry in the world. We made breakthough discoveries on the nutritional values of palm oil, fighting off the Anti Palm Oil Smear Campaign waged by the American Soyabean Association(ASA) with the positive results MPOB obtained from the research grants given to various established Universities all over the world to conduct research on palm oil. MPOB then was the premier research institute on oil palm and palm oil, true to its Mission and Vision statement. For the past 5 years, MPOB gradually lost its oomph somehow, even though Malaysian Palm 0il remained as the No 1 Oil in the world. (Pardon me, if I am wrong). Leadership plays an instrumental role in the rise and fall of an organization. It is Leadership also that make or break an organization.
I was happy and proud serving MPOB during the golden age of palm oil 1982-2005. During this period, Tan Sri Yusof Basiron was the Director-General of MPOB and YB Datuk Seri Lim Keng Yaik was the Minister of Primary Industries of Malaysia.http://www.mpob.gov.my/