Hundreds of Indonesian smallholder farmers yesterday staged a protest in the capital, Jakarta, and in other parts of the world’s fourth-most populous nation, demanding that the government end a palm oil export ban that has slashed their income.
Indonesia, the world’s top palm oil exporter, has since April 28 halted shipments of crude palm oil and some of its derivative products in a bid to control soaring prices of domestic cooking oil, rattling global vegetable oil markets.
Marching alongside a truck filled with palm oil fruit, farmers held a rally outside the offices of the Indonesian Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs, which is leading the government policy.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Malaysian farmers are wearing full smiles, Indonesian farmers suffer,” one of the signs held up by protesters read.
Malaysia is the second-largest producer of palm oil and has said it aims to supply markets left open by Indonesia’s export ban.
In a statement, the smallholder farmers’ group APKASINDO said since the announcement of the export ban the price of palm fruit had dropped 70 percent below the floor price set by regional authorities.
Meanwhile, APKASINDO estimated that at least 25 percent of palm oil mills had stopped buying palm fruit from independent farmers.
The protesters also planned to march to the presidential palace, the group said.
Similar protests were also being held in 22 other provinces, it said.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo imposed the export ban on palm oil and its derivative products used in the making of cooking oil after a series of policies failed to control the price of the basic household food item.
A survey this week showed the approval ratings for Widodo hit the lowest level since December 2015 due to rising prices.
Figures released by pollster Indikator Politik Indonesia showed that satisfaction with Widodo fell to 58.1 percent this month, the lowest since December 2015 when the president’s approval rating slumped to 53 percent.
Indonesian Chief Minister of Economics Airlangga Hartarto has said the ban would stay in place until bulk cooking oil prices drop to 14,000 rupiah (US$0.96) per liter across Indonesia.
Indonesian Ministry of Trade data showed that bulk cooking oil was priced on average at 17,300 rupiah per liter on Friday.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema