Big palm oil's pledge to preserve forests vexes Indonesia

Major palm oil companies were invited to a series of meetings at the economics ministry last week, where officials expressed concern the pledges the plantation companies made are causing big problems for smaller palm oil firms in their supply chain, the sources told Reuters.

The government has asked palm oil firms who signed the Indonesian Palm Oil Pledge (IPOP) to exempt smallholders because they are not yet ready to practice the same level of sustainable forest practices as the big players, said Musdhalifah Machmud, deputy minister for food and agriculture at the coordinating ministry for economic affairs.