Jeffrey wants answers on banned Guarana

KOTA KINABALU (Sept 24): Agriculture, Food and Fisheries Industry Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Jeffrey Kitingan wants answers regarding the Guarana so he can present them during the next Sabah Cabinet meeting.

Jeffrey said the crop is from Brazil and is associated with beverages and drinks, and has pharmaceutical values.

“I also understand from friends that it has good economic value,” he said.

However, he noted that the Guarana was still banned in Malaysia and he had raised the issue to the Federal Agriculture Ministry, seeking an answer from them.

Jeffrey disclosed that he had not received any answers and said that he wanted to bring the matter up during the upcoming Parliament session.

“There are two problems we must overcome. On the issue of legality, the Nagoya protocol.

They alleged that Brazil claimed IP (Intellectual Property) over the commodity,” said the Keningau Member of Parliament.

He also wants to know if planting the Guarana would pose dangers to the nation’s rubber industry and other crops.

The Deputy Chief Minister I hopes to get answers and present them to the Sabah Cabinet as soon as possible, citing that it was important to not leave the issues hanging.

Jeffrey also claimed that Guarana also exists on the island of Borneo, and in Sarawak it is known by another name, while in Sabah, it has been found more than 30 years ago, and was also known by a different name.

“The Guarana grows as an indigenous plant,” he said.

Jeffrey mentioned also that the crop has been around for seven generations in West Malaysia.

“But we cannot move on because there is no policy,” he said.

“We may have to create a regulation or system or a Guarana board,” he proposed during his keynote address at the Borneo International Guarana Conference 2024 (Big C 2024) at the Hilton Hotel on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, University of Texas at Austin’s professor of history, Seth Garfield, said the issue of transplanting of Amazonian crop to Southeast Asia is a point of great sensitivity and perhaps resentment of the longer rubber history and legacy.

“I think that first there are now laws that Brazil has enactment in legislation to protect its resources and the livelihood of its traditional people, investors etcetera,” he said.

Seth authored “Guarana: How Brazil Embraced the World’s Most Caffeine-Rich Plant” as well as “In Search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States, and the Nature of a Region”, and “Indigenous Struggle at the Heart of Brazil: State Policy, Frontier Expansion, and the Xavante Indians, 1937-1988”.

Nevertheless, he said that there are recourses for foreign companies to apply to gain access to these resources.

“It is not like the pathway is blocked,” he said, adding that as a citizen of the world he would like to see greater properity for all people, in Brazil, in Malaysia and wherever.

“And I would like to see adherence to the law and international laws,” he stressed.

He felt that the best way forward was for investors in Malaysia to reach agreements with Brazilian legislators, with Brazilian investors and government officials.

He added that the Brazilians were committed and have placed more safeguards to ensure greater equity and justice for Brazilian cultivators.

Seth also shared that Guarana has become Brazil’s national soda.

“No birthday party, no family get-together, no holidays and meals in Brazil would today omit the Guarana soda, no restaurant and convenience store would fail to stock it,” he said.

Brazilians often proudly offer the drink to foreigners visiting their country and boasts that it is better than Coca Cola, he said.

He added that Guarana is distributed in 170 nations currently as main ingredients in energy drinks. The plant cultivation is limited to Brazil where the consumption is also predominant.

He said that the bulk of Guarana was for the soda industry, with 25 percent of the soda market with the Antarctica brand commanding 75 percent of domestic sales.

He added that it was a multi-billion dollar industry in Brazil.

Internationally, it is consumed as coffee or tea, he said.

He explained that Guarana is a caffeine-rich plant and used to be planted by merely smallholders in Brazil.

“With increased interest in Guarana for pharmaceuticals, proposals for transplantation emerged,” he said, adding that seedlings were sent to countries such as India, Sri Lanka and other Southeast Asian countries during the late 1800s.

Seth also mentioned that in the year 2000, Brazilians drank 17,000 million bottles of Guarana soda per day.