Tag: biofuels

Tinder’s app gets more social by letting friends play matchmaker | TechCrunch

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Dating app users will often sit with friends as they swipe through their matches in order to gain feedback, or even hand over their phone and let their friends swipe for them. Now, that real-life experience is becoming a part of Tinder’s product, as the company today is introducing a new feature called Tinder Matchmaker where users can invite their friends — including non-Tinder users — to view and suggest potential matches.

The idea, the company explains, is to allow Tinder users to learn who their friends or even their family members think would be a good match for them, and it’s inspired by Tinder user data. According to a survey the company commissioned, over 75% of singles said they discussed their dating life with their friends multiple times per month.

But the “matchmaker” doesn’t have control over the experience in terms of actually swiping left or right on the individual profiles as they would if you handed over your phone. Instead, the Tinder users themselves will be the ones who ultimately decide if they want to match or send someone a Like, just like in real life. Plus, the friend who’s weighing in on your matches won’t need Tinder profile to do so. That means, you can ask married or partnered friends to participate in the experience without getting them into trouble.

To use the feature, Tinder users can start a session directly from a profile card or the app settings. This provides them with a unique link they can share with up to 15 friends for a 24-hour period. Friends following the link can either log into Tinder or continue as a guest (after completing an age verification prompt and agreeing to terms) to start their session. They can then recommend profiles for the Tinder user in question, which the user can review after the session ends.

“For years, singles have asked their friends to help find their next match on Tinder, and now we’re making that so easy with Tinder Matchmaker,” noted Melissa Hobley, Chief Marketing Officer at Tinder, in a statement about the launch. “Tinder Matchmaker brings your circle of trust into your dating journey and helps you see the possibilities you might be overlooking from the perspective of those closest to you,” she added.

The company also partnered with “Players” singer Coi Leray to market the new feature. In a new video, she’ll soon show off how the “friend test” feature works.

The introduction of the new feature comes at a time when some younger users, and particularly Gen Z, have tired of swiping-based dating apps, including Tinder, leaving the company to try to maximize its revenue with more exclusive pricing tiers — like the $499 per month Tinder Select subscription for elite daters. In its most recent quarter, Tinder parent Match Group said paying users across its portfolio fell 5% to 15.6 million. And a Pew Research study found that dating apps overall, aren’t gaining traction in the U.S. where three in ten U.S. adults report ever using one — a share that has remained unchanged since 2019.

Instead, many Gen Z users are turning to friend-finding apps and traditional social media, like Instagram, to make romantic connections. Meanwhile, startups — like Candid, Ditto, IRLY, Snack and others — are testing the waters with video, leveraging Gen Z’s comfort with platforms like TikTok to transform dating apps into more dynamic and authentic experiences. Another cohort is using AI for dating or dating practice, like Teaser AI (now rebranded Mila) or Blush, for example.

Tinder Matchmaker is launching today in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, Thailand, United Kingdom, and Vietnam, and will roll out to Tinder users globally in the coming months, the company says.

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Sarah Perez

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October 23, 2023
‘You’ve underestimated us’: How McCarthy’s horse-trading stopped a GOP revolt in debt fight | CNN Politics

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CNN
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Speaker Kevin McCarthy rolled the dice.

As he took his short walk from the speaker’s suite to the House floor on Wednesday evening, the California Republican wasn’t entirely sure he would have the votes on the most important bill of his young speakership: To raise the $31.4 trillion national debt limit on Republican support alone.

McCarthy knew he was close but couldn’t guarantee it, according to a person familiar with the matter.

After months of internal discussions, the speaker had been engaged in round-the-clock talks with pockets of dissident members, cutting deals and horse-trading to pick off one GOP vote after another in his high-stakes fight – all an attempt to show the White House and the country that his party speaks with one voice on the consequential economic battle.

But one Republican member was absent on Wednesday – and some hard-right members would not explicitly say how they’d vote, forcing the speaker to make a risky bet. In the end, it was two Democratic absences that helped McCarthy: Allowing him to pass the bill on the narrowest of margins, 217-215, and now shifting the focus to the White House and Senate Democrats.

“We are the only ones to lift the debt limit to make sure this economy is not in jeopardy,” McCarthy beamed in the Capitol’s ornate Statuary Hall moments after the gavel came down, calling on President Joe Biden to negotiate a spending-cut deal he has resisted for months. He added: “You’ve underestimated us.”

It was an effort that was months in the making. Immediately after securing the speakership in a messy, 15-ballot race, McCarthy made the concerted decision to avoid the pitfalls of a predecessor, John Boehner, and allow rank-and-file members to feel like they could shape the ultimate package rather than being steamrolled by leadership. A dozen listening sessions were held by two members of his whip team, Reps. Tom Emmer of Minnesota and Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania, starting in February and continuing with them calling every member through this past weekend. Then there were regular meetings of the so-called “five families” – nicknamed after the mob families in “The Godfather” – that represent various ideological factions of the conference and were led by Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana.

But even after they had agreed to an outline of their deal last week, McCarthy continued to run into pitfalls. In a meeting last week in the basement of the Capitol, he and his team moved to appease conservatives who wanted to target tax breaks for biofuels in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act. McCarthy agreed, prompting a furious pushback by Iowa Republicans, including a tense phone call between Gov. Kim Reynolds and McCarthy.

It was an issue that could have derailed the bill and one that put McCarthy in familiar crosshairs between competing factions of his conference. But he ultimately cut a deal past 2 a.m. on Wednesday and helped move closer to securing the votes more than 15 hours later.

“They realized that you were not going to be able to steamroll four people from Iowa,” said Rep. Zach Nunn, an Iowa freshman, referring to the four GOP members of the delegation.

Yet more problems emerged, and McCarthy moved to head them off. Rep. Nancy Mace told reporters Wednesday morning she was ready to vote against the plan over her concerns it didn’t go far enough to balance the budget. But after an afternoon meeting in his office, the South Carolina Republican said she would back the plan. The promise, according to a source familiar with the matter: Votes on bills dealing with women’s access to reproductive health care and a vote on a bill dealing with active shooter alerts.

“I haven’t gotten rolled yet by the leadership on anything,” Mace said, defending her deal-cutting.

The ultimate plan would raise the debt limit by $1.5 trillion and propose to implement a slew of spending cuts to domestic programs, in addition to new work requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries and provisions targeting Biden’s domestic and regulatory agenda. It would save $4.8 trillion over the next 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But the $1.5 trillion increase would only last through March 2024 at the latest.

In a private meeting in the Capitol, GOP leaders debated how high of a debt limit increase they should seek. Some had floated odd numbers because it sounded more intentional than an even number. One member suggested $1.69 trillion, but that was rejected because of the innuendos associated with such a figure, according to three GOP sources. Ultimately, a $1. 5 trillion increase was the number they settled on.

Republicans say the deal-cutting that has since transpired was the result of new relationships forged from McCarthy’s drawn-out fight for the speaker’s gavel in January.

“Absolutely, it has reaped benefits to everyone in the conference,” Rep. French Hill, a Republican of Arkansas, said of the relationships that were formed.

But passing the bill was never a sure bet – something McCarthy sensed last week as he moved to appease conservatives and push for a repeal of energy tax breaks.

“This is going to come back to bite us,” McCarthy warned conservatives last week, according to a person in the room, as they demanded the bill repeal green energy tax credits and other provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act. McCarthy feared taking that step would unlock a process allowing the Senate to later jam the House on thorny tax-related provisions.

But he had a more immediate problem: The governor of Iowa.

A fired-up Reynolds, the two-term Republican governor, was on the phone with McCarthy on Tuesday, relaying concerns over the provision in his debt ceiling plan to repeal tax breaks for ethanol use, according to people familiar with the call, warning it would be detrimental to farmers in her state.

All four GOP members of the Iowa delegation, who were also in constant communication with the governor, informed leadership in a Tuesday night meeting that clawing back the tax credits was a “red line” for them, according to sources in the room.

McCarthy now had a math problem. His allies had believed that the Iowa Republicans, some of the closest allies of leadership, would swallow the provisions and ultimately side with their party in their high-stakes fight with the White House. But they had miscalculated, forcing the speaker to cut a last-ditch deal after repeatedly insisting they would not open the bill to changes.

Nunn, the Iowa Republican, told CNN he learned about the deal at around 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, when Graves came to his office along with Rep. Michelle Fischbach, a Minnesota Republican who had similar issues with the ethanol provisions.

“We had been in conversation throughout the entire day, but by Tuesday, we had really ratcheted up,” Nunn told CNN. “Iowa nice also means Iowa stubborn.”

It was an issue that GOP leaders had sought to avoid. They had worried that if they cut a deal with the Iowa delegation, they would have to make similar deals with members from fossil-fuel heavy districts in order to make them happy.

And the leadership knew if they were going to make 11th-hour changes to appease Midwestern Republicans, they’d have to offer some concessions to conservatives as well, and ultimately agreed to a faster implementation of the Medicaid work requirements. Yet even that wasn’t enough to satisfy some conservatives who had been pushing for that change – namely GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, who was upset that the deal was cut at the last minute after the leaders said they wouldn’t change the bill, according to people familiar with the matter. He was one of four who later voted against the plan.

Rep. Ken Buck, a member of the whip team, said in the end, he voted “no” because the GOP bill didn’t do enough to reduce the deficit. The Colorado Republican told CNN, “$58 trillion with Biden’s numbers and $53 trillion, it’s just too much debt.”

But one member that McCarthy had been lobbying came through: freshman Rep. Eli Crane. The Arizona Republican had been wavering on the bill and was being heavily whipped by leadership, but said he ultimately backed the legislation because of his constituents.

“We conducted a poll at a teletown hall last night and the people that responded overwhelmingly supported this bill,” he told CNN. “It kind of surprised me, honestly.”

With this victory secured, McCarthy could later have an even bigger test on his hands: If he is forced to ask his conference to get behind any deal with Biden to raise the debt limit – something that almost certainly wouldn’t go as far as the House plan for spending cuts.

His members are watching him closely.

“What Kevin has assured us is he’s not coming back and presenting a watered-down version,” said Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a member of the House Freedom Caucus.

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April 26, 2023
Officials say water and air are safe after train carrying highly flammable ethanol derails in Minnesota | CNN

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CNN
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The day after a train carrying a highly flammable chemical derailed and burst into flames in a small city in southwestern Minnesota, crews are still working to clear the area as officials reassure residents the water and air are safe.

Of the 22 cars that derailed in Raymond, Minnesota, Thursday morning, four containing ethanol ruptured and caught fire, the US Environmental Protection Agency said. Other cars carrying the substance were also at risk of releasing the chemical, the EPA said.

Other cars that derailed contained corn syrup, the Kandiyohi County Sheriff’s Office said. No injuries have been reported.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar said at a Friday news conference at the site that it “seems” there is no contamination within the soil.

“No one was hurt. The ground is good. The air is good. So, let’s just see what we can do going forward to make sure it does not happen again,” the Minnesota Democrat said.

There are currently 100 people at on the scene of the derailment cleaning up the cars. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating, Klobuchar said.

The EPA said it has been at the crash site and monitoring the air for particulate matter and other compounds, noting there hasn’t been severe impact to the community thus far. And the train operator, BNSF Railway, said it did not find any impact to the drinking water and the air either, it said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

“Our concern, after the safety of the people here, was what was going to happen with the air and they have done multiple tests and they will continue to do that,” Klobuchar said.

The cars are expected to be running again – barring a major blizzard – in the next few days, according to Klobuchar and remediation efforts are also underway to help residents who were impacted by the incident.

Klobuchar said she and fellow Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith are looking into rail safety legislation in Congress.

In the meantime, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in a tweet Friday that he’s “grateful for the swift, coordinated response” of local, state, and national partners.

“Yesterday’s derailment amplifies the critical need to pass my budget’s investments in rail safety to prevent this from happening again,” Walz said.

The response to the derailment and fire included 28 fire departments, including several volunteer departments who remained at the crash late Thursday, the sheriff’s office had said in a post online.

The derailment happened around 1 a.m. Thursday in Raymond, a small city of some 800 residents.

Homes within a half-mile of the derailment were evacuated, but the order was lifted later in the day, according to the sheriff’s office.

The derailment in Minnesota comes less than two months after a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous chemicals crashed in the Ohio community of East Palestine.

The blaze burned for days, and toxic chemicals were released into the air and killed thousands of fish. Many residents there have complained of health problems after the derailment and raised concerns about the impact of the chemicals.

In Minnesota, preliminary information from the crash suggested 14 of the train’s 40 cars were carrying hazardous materials, “including ethanol, which was released – leading to a fire,” US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN Thursday morning.

Ethanol can explode when mixed with vapor and air. Exposure to ethanol can lead to coughing, dizziness, the feeling of burning eyes, drowsiness and unconsciousness.

“Ethanol, like many chemicals, can be toxic if inhaled or comes into contact with skin or is ingested. But it requires a certain concentration to be a health hazard,” said Purdue University professor Andrew Whelton, an expert in environmental chemistry and water quality.

Ethanol is highly soluble in water, meaning it will be relatively easy to dilute.

“Dilution is one way to reduce the risk” of health issues from any water that may be contaminated with ethanol, Whelton said.

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March 31, 2023
A train carrying highly flammable ethanol derails in Minnesota, sparking an hourslong fire. Now 4 more cars with ethanol could spill | CNN

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CNN
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A train hauling ethanol derailed Thursday morning in Raymond, Minnesota, igniting several rail cars and forcing a mandatory evacuation of the city of about 800, officials said.

The fire was still burning more than 8 hours after the derailment, the US Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement late Thursday morning.

“Four cars containing ethanol, a highly flammable product, ruptured, caught fire and continue to burn,” said the EPA, which had members at the scene by 6:30 a.m.

And there’s a risk that more ethanol could spill.

“Four additional cars containing ethanol may also release,” the EPA said. “The local fire department is currently the lead for the response and ordered a mandatory evacuation of the city. The evacuation remains in place.”

The EPA team is on the ground in Raymond to conduct air quality monitoring.

Preliminary information suggests 14 of the train’s 40 cars were carrying hazardous material, “including ethanol, which was released – leading to a fire,” US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told CNN on Thursday.

In addition to ethanol, the train was carrying mixed freight including corn syrup, said Lena Kent, general director of public affairs for BNSF Railway.

Ethanol can explode when mixed with vapor and air. Ethanol exposure can lead to coughing, dizziness, the feeling of burning eyes, drowsiness and unconsciousness.

The derailment happened around 1 a.m. Homes within a half-mile of the derailment were evacuated, the Kandiyohi County Sheriff’s Office said.

“There have been no injuries as a result of the crash or emergency response,” the sheriff’s office posted on Facebook. “BNSF specialists are on scene and continued mitigation is occurring.”

Brittney Phelps and her family were startled by a knock on their door at 1:30 a.m. It was a first responder going door to door telling residents to flee as a precaution.

“I heard a loud crash but didn’t think anything of it ‘til ambulances were outside the house,” Phelps said.

She soon smelled the stench of ethanol and saw the wrecked train cars and large fire, Phelps told CNN.

The Minnesota Department of Transportation closed a nearby highway due to the derailment and blaze, the fire department said. The main railroad track is blocked, and an estimated time for reopening the line was not available.

“The City of Raymond is not accessible to the public, so Unity Church in Prinsburg is willing to be a drop off location for bottled water and snacks for the firemen,” the wife of a fire department member said, according to the department’s Facebook page. “These brave souls have been working hard for hours already, and have several hours of work ahead for them.”

The cause of the derailment is under investigation. A team from the National Transportation Safety Board is expected to arrive at the site Thursday afternoon, the NTSB said.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state emergency management leadership will travel to Raymond on Thursday to visit the site of the derailment, the governor’s office said.

The derailment happened nearly two months after another train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio – igniting a dayslong inferno, spewing poisonous fumes into the air and killing thousands of fish. The Ohio health department is preparing to offer health tests to first responders as part of a long-term effort to monitor the health of those who responded to the disaster.

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March 30, 2023
Brussels to Berlin: We’ll find a way to save the car engine

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Voiced by artificial intelligence.

On the future of the internal combustion engine, Germany has gotten its own way, again.

The European Commission and Germany’s Transport Ministry announced a deal Saturday morning that commits the EU executive to figuring out a legal way to allow the sale of new engine-installed cars running exclusively on synthetic e-fuels even after a mandate comes into force requiring sales of only zero-emission vehicles from 2035.

“We have found an agreement with Germany on the future use of e-fuels in cars,” the Commission’s Green Deal chief Frans Timmermans said on Twitter. “We will work now on getting the CO2 standards for cars regulation adopted as soon as possible.”

The deal heads off a row over car legislation that was all-but-agreed until Germany, along with a small club of allies, slammed on the brakes just days before formal final approval on a law that is the centerpiece of the EU’s green agenda.

Timmermans said the Commission would “follow up swiftly” with “legal steps” to turn a non-binding annex to the law, introduced originally at the insistence of Europe’s car-making titan Germany, into a concrete workaround allowing new vehicles running on e-fuels, which do emit some CO2, to be sold post-2035.

As a first step, the Commission has agreed to carve out a new category of e-fuel-only vehicles inside the existing Euro 6 automotive rulebook and then integrate that classification into the contentious CO2 standards legislation that mandates the 2035 phase-out date for sales of new combustion-engine vehicles.

The terms of the final deal from Timmermans’ cabinet chief Diederik Samsom, seen by POLITICO, say the Commission will reopen the text of the engine-ban law if EU lawmakers manage to stop the introduction of a technical annex that would make space for e-fuels alongside the agreed CO2 standards. Reopening the proposed law’s text is a move that is fundamentally opposed by the European Parliament and green-minded countries.

The crux of the standoff was that Germany demanded binding legal language that would ensure the Commission would find a way to satisfy Berlin’s demands even if the European Parliament, or the courts, moved to block any tweaks or legal annexes to the 2035 zero-emissions legislation covering cars and vans.

In the statement, Samsom promised the Commission will publish its full e-fuels proposal as a so-called delegated act this fall. In practice, that means the original 2035 legislation will pass at first — offering the European Commission a critical win — but it sets up a future fight over the technical additions needed to satisfy Berlin.

“The law that 100 percent of cars sold after 2035 must be zero emissions will be voted unchanged by next Tuesday,” said Pascal Canfin, the French liberal lawmaker spearheading the file in the assembly. “Parliament will decide in due course on the Commission’s future proposals on e-fuels.”

Engine endgame

The deal means energy ministers can sign off on the original 2035 proposal during a meeting on Tuesday given that Berlin now has assurances that its demands will be met. In advance, EU ambassadors will review the bilateral deal between Brussels and Berlin on Monday, an EU diplomat said.

The agreement caps a decade of German pushback on EU automotive emissions rule-making.

In 2013, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel intervened late to water down previous iterations of car emission standards legislation, securing tweaks critical to the country’s hulking automotive industry.

The deal means Germany has effectively dropped its last-minute opposition to the car engine ban law | Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Since the Volkswagen Dieselgate scandal, most carmakers have shifted their investments toward electric vehicles, but some industry interests, notably high-end carmakers such as Porsche and Germany’s web of combustion engine component makers, have sought to save traditional gas guzzlers from the clutches of a de facto EU sales ban.

Figuring out a final workaround on e-fuels in the 2035 legislation will still take some months, given that technical standards haven’t yet been clarified for setting out a “robust and evasion-proof” system for selling cars that can only be fuelled on synthetic alternatives to petrol and diesel, according to Samsom’s statement.

The timeline is already clear in Berlin’s perspective. “We want the process to be completed by autumn 2024,” said the German Transport Ministry, which is run by the country’s Free Democratic Party. The FDP, the most junior in Germany’s three-way governing coalition, had wanted fixed legal language to guarantee a loophole for e-fuels, which can theoretically be CO2-neutral but which wouldn’t normally comply with the emissions legislation since they do still emit tailpipe pollutants.

With the FDP’s popularity tumbling, the car policy row with Brussels has been a popular talking point in German media over recent weeks. One survey reports that 67 percent of respondents are against the engine ban legislation. Ahead of national elections in late 2025, the FDP is betting on driver-friendly policies such as e-fuels, new road construction initiatives and a block on the implementation of a national highway speed limit, to raise its profile.

Market watchers don’t anticipate e-fuels to offer much in the way of a mass-market alternative to electric vehicles, given that they are costly to produce and don’t exist in commercial volumes today. A study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research reports that even if all global e-fuel production was allocated to German consumers, the output would only meet a tenth of national demand in the aviation, maritime and chemical sectors by 2035.

“E-fuels are an expensive and massively inefficient diversion from the transformation to electric facing Europe’s carmakers,” said Julia Poliscanova from the green group Transport & Environment.

Auto politics

Despite not being on the formal agenda, the issue dominated discussions on the sidelines of this week’s summit of EU leaders in Brussels. A deal between Brussels and Berlin was only struck at 9 p.m. on Friday, hours after leaders left the EU capital, before being formally announced on social media early Saturday.

“The way is clear,” said German Transport Minister Volker Wissing in announcing the agreement. “We have secured opportunities for Europe by keeping important options open for climate-neutral and affordable mobility.”

The deal means Germany has effectively dropped its last-minute opposition to the car engine ban law, collapsing a blocking minority of Italy, Poland, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic that had put a roadblock in front of final ratification by ministers of the deal reached last October between the three EU institutions.

It remains unclear whether Italy’s attempts to find a separate workaround for biofuels — promoted personally by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the summit — also succeeded. However, without Berlin’s support, Rome doesn’t have a way to block the legislation.

German Transport Minister Volker Wissing | Maja Hitij/Getty Images

Responses to the Commission working up a bespoke fix for its biggest member country on otherwise agreed legislation were generally negative, with many arguing the e-fuels issue is a diversion.

“The opening for e-fuels does not mean a significant change for the transformation to electric cars,” said Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, a professor at the Center for Automotive Research in Duisburg. He said the Commission’s dealmaking raised “new investment uncertainties” that undermined the bloc’s efforts to catch up with China, the world’s leading producer of electric vehicles.

Still, most are just happy that the combustion engine row is ended, for now.

“It is good that this impasse is over,” said German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke, who backed the original 2035 deal without a reference to e-fuels. “Anything else would have severely damaged both confidence in European procedures and in Germany’s reliability inside European politics,” the minister said in a statement.

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Joshua Posaner

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March 23, 2023
Indigenous Palm Oil Farmers Urge French Government to Reconsider Position on Palm Oil Biofuels

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Press Release
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updated: Feb 15, 2019

MIRI, Malaysia, February 15, 2019 (Newswire.com)
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The Dayak Oil Palm Planters Association (DOPPA) which represents indigenous farmers of oil palm in Sarawak, Malaysia, is urging the French government to reconsider its position on the use of palm oil for French biofuels.

The French government is proposing to stop the usage of palm oil as feedstock for biofuels as part of its overall attempt to reduce imported deforestation.

DOPPA had issued a similar plea to the EU Commission as it was considering an EU wide ban on the use of palm for the EU’s biofuels needs. The association was pleased with the commission’s decisions in February of 2019 to provide an exception for small farmer-produced palm oil. DOPPA which represents the indigenous oil palm farmers of Sarawak state in Malaysia, however, remains concerned with the French parliament which seeks to phase out palm oil biofuels despite the fact that bioenergy in France needs palm oil as a feedstock.

According to the Malaysian Palm Oil Board which oversees small farmers in Malaysia, there are 28,000 indigenous farmers in Sarawak that grow oil palm as a cash crop. DOPPA urged the French government to consider all the facts on palm oil before making a decision.

Vice President of DOPPA, Rita Insol said:

“We admire the French government’s ambition to save forests by not importing any products that cause deforestation. As indigenous people who depended on forests for survival for centuries, we share that ambition as our forests still provide sustenance for many of Sarawak’s indigenous peoples.

“Therefore, the allegations that all palm oil causes deforestation is simply not true. Our oil palm is planted on farmlands that were inherited from our forefathers. At one time, these lands were planted with rice or rubber as cash crops so that we could buy what cannot grow but it is oil palm that has proven to be the most consistent provider of income. Many of Sarawak’s indigenous farmers have been able to afford better houses and send their children for higher education because of what oil palm provides.

“Now with the implementation of the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil scheme, many of us are looking forward to better incomes through higher yields through the training in better farming techniques. It is, therefore, a source of great concern and disappointment among the indigenous farmers that France would consider a ban on palm oil in its biofuels policies. We would consider this to be a discriminatory act against the indigenous farmers of Sarawak.

“We hope that by informing them that a policy that seemingly discriminates palm oil is essentially discrimination against the rights of indigenous peoples and they will not deprive us of the right to development.

“It is a right we toil for in our daily lives. Many of us maintain our small oil palm farms by ourselves. This includes carrying several tons of harvests every month, even for our women. But we do not complain about the hard work, we only ask for a chance for buyers like the French to support us when they need palm oil because we would rather work with pride than beg.

“We hope the French ambassador can visit our farms to see the truth and pass that on to his government. These are farms that grow fruits and vegetables as food for our families, with oil palm being planted as a way out of poverty.”

For media inquiries, please contact:

Rita Insol, Vice-President of Dayak Oil Palm Planters Association, (DOPPA)

Email: ritasarimah@gmail.com

Note to Editors. DOPPA is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2015 to represent the indigenous palm oil farmers in Sarawak state, Malaysia. Based on data from the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) which issues licenses and regulates to all palm oil production in Malaysia, there are 28,000 indigenous palm oil farmers out of the total of 36,000 registered smallholders in Sarawak state. Estimated acreage of palm oil farms cultivated by indigenous peoples in Sarawak state is under 100,000 hectares. Their harvests are an integral supply to the Malaysian palm oil production which is working towards national sustainability certification by 2020 under the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) scheme. The MPOB has allocated funds to assist smallholders by paying fully towards the costs of upgrading their farms to meet certification criteria.

DOPPA expects to register all Dayak smallholders and have them certified under the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil scheme (MSPO) by 2020. The driving force for the certification of all smallholders under the MSPO is the MSPO requirement to be certified or lose their license to grow palm oil. Palm oil production in Malaysia is heavily regulated by state and federal laws from all aspects, including the planting of high-yielding species to the employment standards of workers. These practices have been in place but are only now being documented to meet the demands for sustainability and traceability by buyer countries, especially those from developed countries.

Source: Dayak Oil Palm Planters Association (DOPPA)

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February 15, 2019