Unsung Heroes

A few weeks ago, I started to carry my camera to work. With the 50mm f/1.8 and the kit lens, the combo is not too big nor heavy. Well, today I came across a nice photo opp, at the oil palm estate.

This is the oil palm's Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) where palm oil is extracted from. As you might already know, palm oil has surpassed the soybean oil as the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world. It also has a slew of other applications including making margarine and vitamin E pills.

Each of the little fruit is like a small coconut with a small kernel inside where palm kernel oil is extracted. In the international market, palm oil and palm kernel oil are priced differently. Palm kernel oil can be used to make soap.

Raja (age 30, left) is a Malaysian of the Indian ethnic. He was born in the estate and he has been working here all his life. He is not married but staying together with his girl friend in the estate housing. He makes RM 0.30 (US$ 0.10) per FFB harvested.

Ibrahim (age 26, right) came all the way from Bangladesh to work here. He is married but I didn't ask if he has got any children. I told him that I would give him copies of these photos so that he can send them home to his wife and he was really glad about that. He makes about RM20 (US$ 6.40) per day without over-time.

They work as a team during the harvesting, which occurs optimally once every 20 days. There are two "weapons" of choice to harvest a ripe FFB.

Here is a chisel that is used to hack at trees below 7ft. It is quite heavy and definitely not easy to hack a fruit from the oil palm tree. I've tried.

Here you can see Raja going at it.

For taller trees (to even more than 40ft!), they use a sickle, secured to an aluminum pole for reach.


Here you can see Raja cutting down a frond and an FFB in one swift action. The sickle is really really sharp, but it still takes a lot of effort to cut a fruit. YES, I've also tried that. The trick was not to "chop" the frond, but to "slice" it using the curved blade.

This is what you have after Raja did his round.

Ibrahim came in later to arrange the fallen fronds and to collect the FFBs using a hook and a wheelbarrow.

Ibrahim was wearing a safety helmet because it was raining and not due to any safety reasons :D
At the end of the day, Raja likes to take a sip at the tobacco and relax. So, these are the Unsung Heroes in improving Malaysian's international trade and in helping to solve the world shortage of edible oil. But what does the future hold for them?

Exciting Time!

During this past year of inactivity, the palm oil industry has experienced the most exciting time in decades.

The price of Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) has increased 104% from RM360/mT (19% OER on Dec 5, 2006) to RM 736/mT (19% OER on Mar 28, 2008)! The FFB price reached its peak on March 4th, 2008 at RM 855/mT!

This is a very exciting time indeed for oil palm planters!

Equator targets waste system at planters

This is another waste treatment idea by composing the Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB) using new technology developed in Taiwan National ChungHsing University. Their composing technique allows the EFB to turn into useful compose within 24hr. The company's Managing Director Murphy Koh wish to address the excessive waste at the palm oil mill and secondary pollution created by other EFB waste treatment techniques such as burning EFB as solid fuel, recycling EFB into papers, etc.

Equator targets waste system at planters
By ZAZALI MUSA

JOHOR BARU: Equator Life Science Bhd is targeting palm oil plantation companies as the main users of its biotechnology waste management system.

Managing director Murphy Koh said the company, via subsidiary Biosmart Sdn Bhd, had invented an instant composting technology (ICT) in joint venture with Taiwan National ChungHsing University.

Murphy Koh with the company’s soil conditioner, Biosmart Soiltonic
Koh said the technology was used to turn food waste from households and restaurants into compost fertiliser and had been used in Taiwan for five years.

“We decided to bring it to Malaysia and apply it in the palm oil industry,’’ he told StarBiz yesterday.

Koh said the company would unveil the ICT at the Bio Malaysia 2006 convention to be held from tomorrow until Friday at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre.

He added that the local palm oil sector instantly provided sufficient raw materials for the system to take off in a bigger way compared with in Taiwan.

Koh said more than 30 million tonnes of bio-waste were created from 400 palm oil mills nationwide after the oil had been extracted from the fruit bunches.

He said the bio-waste disposal was an important issue not only in terms of cost for disposal but also because it threatened the environment.

“The system allows us to utilise all bio-waste and will enable Malaysia to achieve zero-waste discharge for the palm oil industry,’’ Koh said.

Currently, there are various ways to utilise the bio-waste to produce solid fuel, paper, compress board and compost, but only a small fraction of the problem is solved due to limitation.

For instance, solid fuel, paper and compress board produce secondary pollution and composting process takes too long, needs a large space and is dependent on weather conditions.

Koh said the ICT system was able to convert oil palm bio-waste into organic fertiliser within a day, thus there would be no empty fruit bunches to be burned and no POME (pam oil mill effluent) to be discharged.

“Palm oil mills could install the machines within their vicinity and use the product as compost fertiliser for the oil palms,” he said.

He said the company currently produced SOS Soiltonic from the palm oil waste and the product helped rehabilitate “sick soil” from over-cultivation.

Koh said its plant in Banting, Selangor, now produced 50 tonnes of SOS Soiltonic daily and last month exported the product to China.

He said the company would also target the palm oil sectors in Indonesia and Thailand and commercial agriculture farmers in Japan and Taiwan for the products.