By Russell Blinch and Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON/WINNIPEG, June 10 (Reuters) - It powered the Green Revolution and helped save millions from starvation, but now one of the most important tools on the farm is being priced out of reach for many of the world’s growers.

With food prices soaring and stocks thinning, the world is in need of bumper harvests but once one of most bountiful of commodities, fertilizer, is becoming scarce and expensive.

It’s estimated that one third of the protein consumed by humans is a result of fertilizer. So high prices and spot shortages are yet another stress on the world’s ailing food system.

“You can’t really expect a bigger harvest if you will not use fertilizer, but the cost is killing us,” rice farmer Jaime Tadeo in the Philippines told Reuters, adding that a bag of fertilizer now sells for nearly 1,800 pesos,…

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Hydrogenated vegetable oil has been banned in two European countries but not ours. Andrew Collier investigates

Tuesday, 10 June 2008

They are the cosy, friendly foods that present us with a rosy image of our childhoods: Quality Street chocolates and Angel Delight dessert; Horlicks instant night-time drink and Knorr stock cubes.

As brands, they endure. Not quite as cutting edge as their more sophisticated and modern supermarket-shelf counterparts, perhaps. And certainly not as healthy. Because the truth is that some of the leading comfort foods we remember from our youth are doing their very best to kill us.

The culprit is one item, usually tucked away in tiny lettering on the ingredients label. It’s called hydrogenated vegetable oil. It sounds harmless enough, but it is one of the most dangerous products ever to be mashed into the food we eat.

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By Amira Agarib

10 May 2008

Malaysia may be producing most of the palm oil in the world,but it is certainly not at the expense of logging and replacing natural forests with oil palm cultivation or loss of wildlife and their habitat.

Palm oil, it has been researched and proven, does not contribute to deforestation or destroys animal life and biodiversity.

Amira Agarib, who visited Malaysia with a team of international journalists, takes a look at different aspects of the industry and brings into focus the ground realities

Impressive efforts are being made by the Malaysian government to maintain a balance between growth and sustainability by utilising sound agricultural practices of Malaysian oil palm plantations that has led to a prosperous and sustainable production of palm oil.

The Malaysian palm oil industry is nearly a century old and it has…

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(ARA) - Peruse a menu at your neighborhood Asian restaurant and you may wonder how so many Asian cultures, whose diets often include lots of fried foods, can still have some of the lowest cholesterol levels and longest life spans in the world. Research shows that their use of palm oil is at least part of the answer.

By now, most Americans know that the hydrogenated vegetable oils we once relied on for our cooking needs boost levels of bad cholesterol (LDL). With the federal government’s recent requirement that manufacturers now reveal the use of hydrogenated oils on package labels, the move is on to find alternatives.

Olive oil has long been considered the alternative oil of choice for those concerned with watching their cholesterol. Its healthful reputation has been based, in part, on studies that show Mediterranean populations, who consume olive oil as their…

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New Straits Times

Thursday - February 28, 2008

by Ahmad Ibrahim

Palm oil-importing countries now insist that the palm oil they import comes from sources with sustainable practices in their plantations.

The bullish mood in the palm oil industry has seen palm oil prices soaring to historic heights. But there are questions about its sustainability, writes AHMAD IBRAHIM

Palm oil is riding high. The bullish mood is expected to prevail in the coming months. Prices have hit historic highs and show no sign of softening. At more than RM3,800 a tonne, profits have never been better.

Unlike in 1998, this time it has nothing to do with a falling ringgit. The ringgit is, in fact, appreciating against the greenback. It is, therefore, no wonder that plantation stocks are now the darling among investors. Some go so far…

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Thursday, 21 February 2008

Jon Tomczyk

www.scoop.co.nz

Global Warming: Palm Oil Owed An Apology

The new Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd offered the nation’s first apology to Aborigines taken from their families for assimilation with the white community, saying the policy was a “blemished chapter” in the nation’s history.

Rudd, in his first parliamentary speech as leader, apologized for the “past mistreatment,” and urged the nation to “turn a new page” by “righting the wrongs of the past.”

“For the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry,” Rudd said. “We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.”

Rudd told Canberra’s national parliament: “We apologize for the laws and policies of successive parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering…

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By KEITH BRADSHER

January 19, 2008

KUANTAN, Malaysia — Rising prices for cooking oil are forcing residents of Asia’s largest slum, in Mumbai, India, to ration every drop. Bakeries in the United States are fretting over higher shortening costs. And here in Malaysia, brand-new factories built to convert vegetable oil into diesel sit idle, their owners unable to afford the raw material.

This is the other oil shock. From India to Indiana, shortages and soaring prices for palm oil, soybean oil and many other types of vegetable oils are the latest, most striking example of a developing global problem: costly food.

The food price index of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, based on export prices for 60 internationally traded foodstuffs, climbed 37 percent last year. That was…

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By Darrell Neale
Staff Writer

Shirley Kratz wants you to feel a sense of peace when you enter her store and workshop, A Touch of Scent, located at 209 Monroe Ave. Extended in Lewes.

“I want to create a space for people to be able to come in and be at peace,” said Kratz, who has been a making candles and other hand-made goods since 2002.

The candle making began after she was diagnosed with scleroderma and became unemployed.

“I was just trying to make some extra money,” said Kratz.

Combining her love of gardening, aromatherapy and herbology, she began to make candles, learning much by trial and error. The candles were first made of pariffin but she switched to to soy because it was healthier for her customers and the environment. Then came bees wax and now palm wax.

Kratz said palm…

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