REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, KUCHING -- Indonesia has asked Malaysia to jointly fight back on campaign against palm oil.

"We must unite to fight black campaign against palm oil," President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said in a joint press statement after meeting with Malaysian prime minister Mohamad Najib Razak here on Wednesday.

The action is needed, he said, because it has to do with the livelihood of small farmers both in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Minimally 17 million people in Indonesia directly or indirectly rely on palm oil for their livelihood and 42 percent of oil palm plantations belong to small farmers.