Sabah oil palm planters leaving fruits to rot

KOTA KINABALU: Thousands of Sabah rural families involved in oil palm cultivation are in dire straits as mills are refusing to buy their oil palm fruits because of palm oil’s plunging price. read more...

Sabah has started a oil palm rush a few years back with oil palm plantations covering acreage 1.3 million hectares as of now with a potential for expansion to up to 1.7 million ha. In that regard, Malaysia has been criticized for clearing up natural rain forest once covered the land. What makes the matter "worst" is that Malaysian Government established the Palm Oil Industrial Cluster (POIC) at Lahad Datu in 2006 to help fuel the growth of oil palm plantations in Sabah.

Now with price of Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) down to RM290/mT, oil palm planters are suffering a lost due to high labor and fertilizer cost.

Carotech secures RM200m biodiesel contract

KUALA LUMPUR: Carotech Bhd, one of the largest local producers of palm methyl ester, has inked a RM200mil contract with Trafigura Beheer BV, Amsterdam for the export of its refined and distilled palm biodiesel to the US and Europe.

Managing director David Ho expected the agreement to contribute significantly to the company’s earnings and further strengthen its position as the leading supplier of palm biodiesel in the world. read more...

This is great news to all Malaysian oil palm planters. With Crude Palm Oil (CPO) free falling from about RM4000/mT in March 2008 till RM1472/mT closed on 14th Nov, oil palm planters do need a lot of assurance from the press to keep working on their farm.

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?