The Indonesian Oil Palm Farmers Association say the palm oil export ban has led to a drop in prices for fresh fruit bunches.
il palm smallholders plan to organize another street protest in Jakarta to further pressure the government to lift its palm oil export ban, after having organized a sizable protest on Tuesday.
Indonesian Oil Palm Farmers Association (Apkasindo) chairman Gulat Manurung said on Wednesday that, if the ban was not reviewed within the near future, the organization had plans to bring 1 million palm kernels to the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta, where the kernels would be processed into red palm cooking oil then sold, as a form of protest.
Apkasindo previously organized hundreds of smallholder farmers to stage a protest in Jakarta and other parts of the country on Tuesday, demanding the government end a palm oil export ban that has slashed their income as fresh fruit bunch (TBS) prices continue to free fall amid an expected domestic supply glut.
Read also: Indonesia widens export ban to include CPO, refined palm oil
“We are racing against time, because the TBS prices are dropping day by day,” Gulat told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. “The export ban directly affects the TBS prices. Please protect the 16 million oil palm farmers who have been affected by the policy.”
Indonesia, the world's top palm oil exporter, has since April 28 halted shipments of crude palm oil (CPO) and some of its derivative products in a bid to control soaring prices of domestic cooking oil, rattling global vegetable oil markets.
Apkasindo estimates that of 1,118 palm oil mills, 25 percent have stopped buying TBS from farmers after TBS prices dipped 40 to 70 percent from the price fixed by the Plantation Agency since the CPO export ban was enforced.
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