Archived News

08/07/2010 (The New Vision) - The Government is seeking Parliament approval of a $52m loan (about sh108b) from the International Fund for Agricultural Development to expand oil palm production in the country.

08/07/2010 (Guardian.co.uk) - HSBC has sold its shares in Sinar Mas, the Indonesian palm oil producer accused by Greenpeace of illegal deforestation, after becoming the latest target of the environmental NGO's anti-deforestation protests.

08/07/2010 (PR Newswire), Minneapolis - Cargill is collaborating with the World Wildlife Fund-U.S. (WWF) to undertake an assessment of its palm oil suppliers in Indonesia as part of its continued commitment to sustainable palm oil production. The assessment will help gauge current progress amongst Cargill's suppliers to implement the principles and criteria established by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

08/07/2010 (Sin Chew Daily Online) - The national economy may probably slow down in the second half of this year due to some external factors. What will the prime minister do to stimulate domestic demand and turn the situation?

07/07/2010 (Better Generation) - Behind closed doors, the biofuels debate has been raging. The dialogue between lobbyists, scientists and high-ranking European civil servants has been intense and their opinions often disparate. Emails, leaked letters and research reports -- released after Reuters and environmental lobbyists excised the Freedom of Information laws -- expose a huge rift in Brussels over biofuels policy, undermining Europe's ambition of using alternative fuels to wean the continent off oil. Beyond this, they raise serious questions about whether some European Commission officials have deliberately skewed the findings of scientific studies to fit their policies and show, to an alarming extent, the way in which vested interests have influenced the science behind a cornerstone of the continent's clean energy policy.

07/07/2010 (Bloomberg) - Palm oil dropped close to the lowest price in more than seven months as a stronger ringgit eroded the appeal of the commodity amid rising vegetable oils supplies.

07/07/2010 (Food Ingredients First) - 3,500 tonnes of Sime Darby’s segregated Certified Sustainable Palm Oil (CSPO) arrived yesterday evening in the port of Rotterdam, underlining the company’s commitment to sustainable agriculture. This shipment of fully traceable segregated palm oil is the first for the world’s largest producer with a European destination. A second shipment will follow later this summer.

06/07/2010 (International Business Times) - Greenpeace, a non-governmental environmental group blamed retailers like Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco for deforestation and contributing to extinction of endangered species in Indonesia, in its latest report named "How Sinar Mas is Pulping the Planet" released on Tuesday.

06/07/2007 (IRIN), Jakarta - Communities throughout Indonesia are losing land to companies seeking to profit from the booming palm oil industry.

06/07/2010 (Agrimoney.com) - Palm oil groups may be set for a new wave of consolidation, as a squeeze on plantation land forces them to buy operators to maintain expansion, a sector boss and former Credit Suisse banker has said.

06/07/2010 (Bloomberg) - Palm oil gained for the first time in four days after crude oil reversed losses, increasing the appeal of the tropical commodity for use in bio-diesel.

06/07/2010 (Greenpeace) - Even though we've had huge success in turning companies like Unilever, Nestlé and Kraft off palm oil produced by Sinar Mas, that only represents one part of the jigsaw and Sinar Mas is still chewing its way through Indonesia's rainforests.