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The Belgian plantation group Sipef is going to vaccinate its staff in hard-to-reach regions in Southeast Asia and West Africa against the corona virus. ‘We are encountering resistance in Papua New Guinea in particular,’ says CEO François Van Hoydonck. ‘Vaccines are equivalent to voodoo there.’
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Sipef
made in the margins of his half-year figures known that it offers all its staff free corona vaccines. This concerns 21,000 employees in countries where local medical support is very limited, such as Papua New Guinea and rural regions in Indonesia. In West Africa, where Sipef grows bananas in the Ivory Coast, employees are also offered a corona shot.
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“We have proactively started phasing out vaccines locally for our people. But we don’t oblige anyone’, says CEO François Van Hoydonck. Sipef has its own field hospitals in the three countries where it has plantations. ‘We administer the vaccines ourselves under the supervision of the Ministry of Health.’ The adult family members of employees are also eligible, which means that the total reach can exceed 21,000.
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Sinovac
In Indonesia, the largest production market where Sipef employs 15,000 people, it signed up to a government vaccine program. ‘But we pay for the vaccines in Indonesia completely ourselves.’ The company has already allocated 1.4 million dollars for this, 70 dollars per vaccine. ‘We have already vaccinated 5,000 people. We are currently waiting for a new delivery. Every two to three weeks we receive tranches of 5,000 vaccines’, says Van Hoydonck. It only concerns the Chinese vaccines Sinovac and Sinopharm.
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Vaccines developed in Europe or the US are provided for Papua New Guinea. They are mainly supplied from Australia. There, of the 5,000 employees who work on Sipef’s palm plantations, only 200 people have been vaccinated. ‘That’s where we run into the most skepticism’, says Van Hoydonck. “In local media and on social media, vaccines are associated with voodoo practices. The urgency to vaccinate is also lower because so far there have been very few infections.’ Sipef will start an awareness campaign there.
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Sipef has 1,300 employees in Ivory Coast, West Africa. There it was able to obtain a vaccine for every employee through the government, from Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna. The vaccines come from international support programs. Sipef should not bear the costs himself. ‘We were able to administer a shot to the entire staff in two of our four banana plantations. We can give everyone a first shot by the end of August.’
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Vaccinating people in developing countries is very slow and difficult to get started. In Asia, less than 10 percent of the adult population is vaccinated, in Africa less than 5 percent. The worldwide program that has been set up for this purpose, Covax, is struggling with significant shortages of vaccines. The fact that Sipef was able to get hold of significant stocks proves the company’s bargaining power with governments. ‘We are part of the social security system with our own hospitals, so the health ministries know us, which makes things easier,’ says Van Hoydonck.
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solid remonte
Sipef links the vaccination message to a strong six-monthly report. The market for palm oil – by far Sipef’s main crop – is in a solid remonte.
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After a volcanic eruption in 2019 the affected oil palms were able to recover, causing volumes to grow by a fifth in the first half. For the full year, Sipef is aiming for 10 percent volume growth.
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The Schoten group has already sold three quarters of its expected production at USD 1,005 per tonne. That’s more than $300 more than last year ($692). Despite an export tax in Indonesia, which has been relaxed again, Sipef expects an annual profit of between 60 and 70 million dollars.
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That figure will increase due to the exceptional capital gain of 11 million dollars that the company realizes on the almost completed sale of its Indonesian tea subsidiary PT Melania. That could bring total profits to more than $80 million, a multiple of last year’s $11 million.
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The strong figures report propelled Sipef to its highest share price this year on Thursday: 49 euros. Over the past four years, the agricultural group had to give up a third of its stock market value at a time when investors are becoming increasingly critical of sustainability criteria.
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The mighty Norwegian state oil fund withdrew its hands from palm oil, often mentioned in the same breath as deforestation, and departed from capital in 2019. It is therefore very important for Sipef to build up sustainable and ethical credibility. It does this, among other things, through sustainable certification of its cultivation and now also through this vaccination campaign.
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