On palm oil, Switzerland also takes action. The NGO
Pain pour le Prochain
e
Action de Carême
are launching a petition against the widespread use of tropical fat, a primary cause of land robbery.
After Italy and France, Belgium, Spain and Sweden, the time has come for Swiss consumAtors. To say Enough! to the use of palm oil in food production, as well as in so-called ‘biofuels’ whose environmental impact is comparable to that of fossil fuels.
The reasons for the initiative are based on ethical issues, moving from the unacceptable abuse on human rights- ‘land grabbing‘ and exploitation of labor, including child labor-as well as on the environment, (1) which not even self-certifications of hypothetical sustainability are able to protect. The text of the petition, at https://voir-et-agir.ch/stop-accaparement/, below.
‘In supermarkets in Switzerland, 1 in 6 products contain palm oil. To produce this fat, people are deported, their lands stolen and the equatorial forest destroyed.
Palm oil violates human rights and destroys the environment!
You can take action against this phenomenon, we are asking large-scale retailers in Switzerland to reduce the number of products containing palm oil from their assortment. Sign our petition now!
Petition: we call for a reduction of products containing palm oil in the assortment of Swiss mass retailers!
Palm oil plantations in tropical area destroy virgin forests, are responsible for fires and threaten biodiversity. These phenomena not only affect nature and animals, as whole families are displaced, losing their livelihoods and seeing their habitats destroyed. Oil palm plantations violate human rights and destroy the environment!
Attempts to label palm oil are a failure. They are initiated by business circles and do not produce the promised effects in favor of human rights, the environment and the decline of industrial palm oil production. The palm oil-induced destruction of the planet must stop. Therefore, a reduction in palm oil consumption is necessary. Take responsibility and reduce the number of products containing palm oil in your range.’
The petition by Pain pour le Prochain and Action de Carême therefore aims to gather the support of Swiss consumers in order to induce retail giants such as Swiss Coop to follow the responsible, pioneering example of Coop Italia. The first retail chain in Europe and the world to take a firm stance.
Coop Italy was the first to exclude palm oil from all foods made under its own brand. For ethical needs, but also to protect the health of consumers. With respect to the risks related to mutagenic and carcinogenic contaminants that characterize the production of tropical fat, on the dangerousness of which Efsa, the European Food Safety Authority, ruled in May 2016. But also with respect to imbalances caused by excessive intakes of saturated fats and palmitic acid.
Full ahead!
Dario Dongo
Notes
(1) Environmental disasters are also linked, among other things, to the use in oil palm crops of a neurotoxic pesticide, paraquat, which the Swiss multinational Syngenta produces in Europe-where its use is banned-and markets in the rest of the planet. Hopefully, the Swiss petition will be able to stop this phenomenon as well.
Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.
