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The Price of Palm Oil

Murder and theft, as well as environmental destruction, lurk behind this staple ingredient of supermarket foods and toiletries - as presenter Manuela Saragosa discovers.

Murder and theft, as well as environmental destruction, lurk behind this staple ingredient of supermarket foods and toiletries - as presenter Manuela Saragosa discovers.

A Colombian farmer recounts the crimes committed against his own family in order to take control of his land, while Agus Sutomo of the pressure group Forest Peoples Programme explains how palm oil farming goes hand-in-hand with human rights abuses in many parts of the world.

Manuela also hears from Danielle Morley - spokesperson for the industry's self-regulator Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - about how serious the big palm oil growers are about cleaning up their act.

And Manuela asks the chief sustainability officer of one major buyer of palm oil - L'Oreal's Alexandra Palt - how she can be sure the raw materials they buy have been legitimately produced.

(Picture: Indonesia's President Joko Widodo inspects a peatland clearing that was engulfed by a fire lit by a palm oil plantation operator; Credit: Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)

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18 minutes

Last on

Mon 30 May 2016 15:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Mon 30 May 2016 07:32GMT
  • Mon 30 May 2016 15:06GMT

Podcast