Palm oil farmers plan second street protest against export ban

Oil 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.