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8/24/2004 , KENNESAW, Ga. /PRNewswire/ -- Wise Foods announces WiseChoice(R), the company's first line of all natural healthy snacks. WiseChoice Potato Crisps and Soy-Potato Crisps have no trans fat orhydrogenated oils, and no artificial flavors and colors. All of theproducts in the Wise Choice line are baked, have 70% less fat thantraditional potato chips, and have just 110 calories per serving.

Aug 16 2004 - The British Government stands accused of damaging theenvironment and polluting watercourses in Papua New Guinea, as well as theabuse of workers' rights, in a letter sent by landowners on the island tothe International Development Secretary Hilary Benn. Working with Friendsof the Earth, the local land owners are calling for compensation for thedamage done by Government-funded palm oil plantations on the island.

Bisnis Indonesia - WWF invites members of RSPO (Roundtable on SustainablePalm Oil) to implement sustainable and responsible palm oil plantationsand industries. Executive Director of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)Indonesia, Mubariq Ahmad said that the development of the palm oilindustry has raised concern from international consumers and otherstakeholders, including European entrepreneurs. "So far, many oil palmplantations and industries still have negative social and environmentalimpacts," he said last week. This was stated in connection with the RSPOmeeting scheduled for 5-6 October 2004 in Jakarta. This event is organizedby Gapki (Gabungan Pengusaha Kelapa Sawit Indonesia = Association ofIndonesian Palm Oil Companies), KMSI (Indonesian Palm Oil Commission) andWWF Indonesia. He mentioned that the negative impacts are associated withthe clearing of high conservation value forests, conflicts betweenwildlife and plantations due to habitat loss, as well as land and forestfires for land clearing. To anticipate the spread of the negative impact,WWF has urged palm oil companies to participate in the Roundtable onSustainable Palm Oil (RSPO). Last year, the RSPO meeting was held in KualaLumpur.

CHICAGO (Dow Jones)--Portions of Minnesota's soybean crop saw freezingtemperatures in some areas over the weekend, causing concern of frostkilling underdeveloped soybean plants. Agronomists, though, maintain thatthe effect of the very low temperatures was negligible."The crop was not harmed very badly at all," said Steve Sodeman, cropconsultant in Martin County, Minn., noting that far less than 1% of thecrop was affected by the cold temperatures.Sodeman said he did not see frost himself, but did hear about itforming in other parts of the state.According to Seth Naeve, soybean agronomist at the University ofMinnesota, the freezing temperatures were isolated to western and northernareas of the belt. According to the National Weather Service, westerntowns such as Appleton, Minn., and northern towns such as Little Falls sawtemperatures as low as 32 degrees Fahrenheit.Temperatures must fall to about 28 degrees for at least one hour tokill a soybean plant, Naeve said.Some spots along the edges of fields, Sodeman said, showed a change toa more yellowish color, indicating early maturity that might have beenhastened by the weekend's drop in temperatures."All we got was a superficial burning you could see on the upperleaves," he said.Naeve said that in the northern part of the state where the coldtemperatures were more severe, losses could amount to more than 25%. Butbecause soybean fields were so far behind in development, they would nothave likely made it past a normal frost date."They were so far behind, it's likely they would have been frostedanyway," he said.But the real issue, Sodeman said, is not the freezing temperatures.Rather, it is the early maturity that is now resulting from the coolgrowing conditions. Because soybean plants take their cues from theenvironment on when to begin maturing, the soybean crop in southernMinnesota started showing signs of the early stages of maturity aroundAug. 15, Sodeman said. Normally, soybean plants in the area do not beginturning color until Aug. 25-30.Consequently, development has been cut short, leavingfewer-than-normal pods on the plants. The number of nodes, which areclusters of soybean pods on the branches of the plant, are down to around10 this year, when they normally total about 12, Sodeman said. A good nodecount would be from 15 to 18, he added.The plants are also shorter than normal, he said, which will causeproblems later during harvest."There'll probably be a 3-5 bushel (per acre) loss because the beansare too close to the ground and too low for the combine to get," he said.Looking ahead, a warm September would not likely have significantbenefit to the southern Minnesota crop, Sodeman said."Warm weather won't really change it," he said. "Once they start toyellow, it's about 30 days to harvest."The U.S. Department of Agriculture currently has Minnesota figured atproducing 292 million bushels with a yield of 40 bushels per acre, up from229.4 million produced last year with a yield of 31 bushels.

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia, Aug 20 (Reuters) - Malaysia's most valuableplantation firm, IOI Corp, said on Friday it would raise yearly palm oiloutput by more than 12 percent to meet strong demand from China and India,boosting profits.Higher Malaysian crude palm oil (CPO) prices of 1,500-1,600 ringgit($395-$421) a tonne are expected for the rest of the year and early 2005,added IOI group executive director Lee Yeow Chor."We expect our performance to be improved due to increases in our palmoil production, a continued favourable property market and a furtherenhancement of earnings from our downstream manufacturing segments," Leetold Reuters.IOI, which has a market value of $2.4 billion, derives about 60 percentof profits from its plantations. It also builds houses and has palm oilrefining operations.At 0911 GMT on Friday the Malaysian benchmark third-month palm oilcontract, November , was up 17 ringgit at 1,487 ringgit a tonne.Malaysian third-month CPO prices have fallen by slightly more than 10percent since the start of 2004, hitting a nine-month closing low of 1,391ringgit in mid-July.Analysts polled by Reuters forecast a 20 percent rise in IOI's netprofit for the year through June 2005 to 843.15 million ringgit, 70.40cents per share.Lee declined to give his own forecast but investors are also bullish.This year IOI shares have risen 5.8 percent versus a 2 percent gain forthe benchmark Kuala Lumpur Composite Index which has a market value of$105 billion.IOI shares closed up 1.9 percent at 8.15 ringgit on Friday.

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8/20/04, CHINA (Oilmandi) - China, the world's top soyabean buyer, hasstruck deals to import more than two million tonnes of the oilseed fromthe new US crop but purchases could slow as Beijing takes steps to tightencredit and limit expansion of crushing capacities, a senior US tradeofficial said.

8/21/04, INDIA (Oilmandi) - CLASSIFICATION disputes are seemingly endemicto edible oils, more so with regard to palm oil.

8/20/2004,TINDIA (THE ECONOMIC TIMES) - With edible oil importerspreferring to set up refineries near ports, West Bengal with its two portsat Kolkata and Haldia, has turned out to be another favourite spot forsetting up greenfield refineries, after Gujarat, Maharashtra, AndhraPradesh and Orissa.

DHAKA, Aug 20 (Bernama) -- Palm oil import in Bangladesh registered asubstantial increase during the last fiscal year (July 2003 -- June 2004)while imports of soyabean oil declined.Dhaka started importing palm oil more than two decades ago and most ofthis edible oils came from Malaysia.According to official statistics available here, Bangladesh imported627,987 tonnes of palm oil in the last fiscal 2003-2004, which was about59 percent of the total imports of edible oil in the country that year.Imports of palm oil increased by about 43 percent compared to previousfiscal 2002-2003.Meanwhile, 365,400 tonnes of soyabean oil was imported during the lastfiscal year, which is about 34 percent of total edible oil imports inBangladesh.Imports of soyabean oil declined by 18 percent compared to that ofprevious fiscal 2002-2003.Bangladesh imported a total of 1,065,330 tonnes of edible oil infiscal year 2003-2004 registering an increase of nine percent.The volume of palm oil imports continued to increase every year and iscurrently dominating Bangladesh's edible oil market."Palm oil's quality and its competitive price compared to that ofsoyabean oil caused rapid increase in palm oil's import and consumption aswell in Bangladesh," said AKM Fakhrul Alam, Country Manager of MalaysianPalm Oil Promotion Council (MPOPC) for Bangladesh.He said that demand of palm oil in Bangladesh market indicates thatthe import and consumption of this edible oil would go up further duringthe current fiscal year 2004-2005.Palm oil is used in Bangladesh both as cooking oil and as aningredient in food processing industries. The use of the oil in both theareas has been increasing steadily.A few of the country's refineries are producing world standard superolein palm oil by adopting developed refining process in their plants."This high quality super olein is being considered as an alternativeto soyabean oil and has a good market in Bangladesh," Fakhrul said.He added that palm oil was always a preferred choice for the foodprocessing industries due to its compatibility as an ingredient in foodprocessing.With the expansion of the food processing industries in the country,palm oil's demand in this sector was also steadily increasing, he said. --BERNAMA

KUALA LUMPUR (Dow Jones)--Asian cash palm oil prices were mixedFriday, with products in Malaysia moving higher due to aggressive buyinginterest from a large trading house.In the Malaysian market, a slew of supply and demand figures wereissued Friday and were considered neutral to bearish, traders said.Earlier Friday, cargo surveyor Intertek Testing Services estimatedMalaysian palm oil exports in the first 20 days of August at 759,623 tons,up 11.1% from the same period in July. The figures were within marketexpectations as speculation was for exports of around 750,000 tons.However, another surveyor SGS (Malaysia) Bhd. reported a disappointingfigure around midday. SGS pegged Aug. 1-20 exports at 725,922 tons, uponly 3.1% from the July 1-20 period.SGS is more closely watched by market participants."The SGS figure is so much lower than Intertek. I expect the market toslowly move down. The main reason why it's higher today is because (atrading company) is bidding for nearby deliveries," a trader said.Traders said once the buying interest from the trading company, whichexports mainly to the Middle East, subsides, the market would be hardpressed to sustain earlier gains.Meanwhile, private crop surveyor Palmis Management Bhd. also issuedsupply and demand figures Friday.Palmis estimated August CPO output around 1.335 million-1.340 millionmetric tons, up from the 1.27 million tons produced in July, tradersfamiliar with the latest Palmis report said.According to traders who obtained the data, Palmis estimated Augustpalm oil exports at 1.165 million-1.170 million tons, up from 1.11 milliontons in July.Palmis pegged end-August stocks at 1.37 million-1.38 million tons, upfrom 1.27 million tons at end-July, traders said.Traders said the figures are unlikely to have much impact on palm oilprices as there were no major revisions from the previous forecast issueda week ago."Production is higher (compared with the previous forecast). Butstocks are unchanged, so overall, the impact is neutral," a trader said.In the cash market, CPO for September shipment was offered atMYR1,525/ton, up MYR5 from Thursday, delivered basis in South Malaysia.RBD palm olein for September shipment was offered at $440/ton, up $5from Thursday.RBD palm oil for September shipment was offered at $430/ton, also up$5.In Indonesia, RBD palm olein in Jakarta was offered at 4,400 rupiah($1=IDR9,205) a kilogram, down IDR25 from Thursday.