Cargill, one of the world’s top palm oil producers, hopes all of its mills and plantations in Indonesia to be certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) in 2013, an executive says.
John Hartmann, the chief operating officer for Cargill Tropical Palm Holdings, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that PT Hindoli — a subsidiary that currently operates 39,000 hectares of oil palm plantations in South Sumatra — had been certified by the RSPO in 2009.
Meanwhile, another subsidiary of Cargill, PT Harapan Sawit Lestari, which operates 31,000 hectares of oil palm plantation in West Kalimantan, had yet to receive the certification from the not-for-profit organization of oil palm growers, processors and consumers.
“We are hoping this year we can get [all of our mills and plantations] to be certified,” he said on the sidelines of the signing ceremony of an agreement between the US-based firm and the Bogor Agriculture Institute (IPB) in Bogor, West Java.
The European Union, as a major market for palm oil, has urged producers in Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries to produce RSPO-certified palm oil.
In addition, Hartmann said the company would be undergoing an audit by the Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) board starting next week.
ISPO is the governmental standard of certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO).
Cargill, through its two subsidiaries in Indonesia, currently operates a total of 70,000 hectares of oil palm plantations.
