From EAST OF KINABALU
By DATUK LESLIE DAVISDON
In 1991 I returned to Malaysia to present the keynote address at an International Conference organized by the ISP in Kuala Lumpur. My paper looked at the progress of the oil palm plantation industry in Malaysia over the four decades I had been involved with it. From 1951 to 1991 the world price of palm oil had declined steadily by nearly 3% per year largely due to the subsidies being paid in the West to the growers of soybean, rape seed and sun flower. In the same period, wages in Malaysia had increased by 75% and the cost of imported machinery by 457%.
Figures like these would have had the farmers in Europe or USA appealing to their governments for further assistance. In Malaysia, the oil palm industry continued to flourish, not by getting hand outs from the tax payers, but by increasing yields, improving productivity and reducing production costs.
It was difficult to obtain accurate figures for the whole industry because of the different accounting systems between plantation companies. However the Unilever plantations in Johore and in Sabah probably gave a reasonable reflection of what had happened throughout the industry. Over the forty years, agricultural yields had increased by 315% and productivity had improved by 419%. The yield increases came from improvements in breeding and husbandry. The productivity increases came from processing improvements, the mechanization of field operations and the introduction of natural pollination.
From 1991 onwards the oil palm industry continued to expand as most of the rubber plantations were replanted with palms. The ownership of the big plantation companies transferred from European to Malaysian hands. The expatriate planters, scientist and engineers, who had established the industry on such firm foundations, disappeared and engineers, disappeared into the pages of history and were replaced by young Malaysian, who have since made their country the center of excellence for the industry worldwide.
Malaysia’s oil palm sector is the great success story of tropical agricultural in the second half of the twentieth century just as rubber was in the first half. With 4.2 million hectares under palms in 2006, the country has become one of the world’s major food producers. Its production of 15 million tons of palm oil, produced by Asians, in their own backyard is sufficient to provide the oils/fats requirements of over a billion people at the current rates of consumption in Asia.
What is most satisfying, ecologically, is that this quantity of food is being produced from perennial plants which provide as sustainable year-round cover and which have approximately the same rate of consumption of carbon dioxide as virgin jungle. Malaysia’s forest cover in year 2006 remains 64% of its land area. Since rubber, cocoa and oil palms are all tree crops, its total tree cover at nearly 78%, is one of the biggest in the entire world.
The oil palm produces more oil per ha than any other oil crop contributing 28% of the world’s output of vegetable oil from only 4% of the world’s planted area of oil crops. The 4.2 millions ha of oil palms in Malaysia, amounting to less than13% of its land area, compares with the 22 million ha of soybeans in Brazil. It is an interesting thought that had Malaysia, to produce its current output of vegetable oil, relied on soybeans as Brazil has done rather than on oil plams, it would have required the clearing of every hectare of standing jungle in the country.
15 May 2007
By DATUK LESLIE DAVISDON
In 1991 I returned to Malaysia to present the keynote address at an International Conference organized by the ISP in Kuala Lumpur. My paper looked at the progress of the oil palm plantation industry in Malaysia over the four decades I had been involved with it. From 1951 to 1991 the world price of palm oil had declined steadily by nearly 3% per year largely due to the subsidies being paid in the West to the growers of soybean, rape seed and sun flower. In the same period, wages in Malaysia had increased by 75% and the cost of imported machinery by 457%.
Figures like these would have had the farmers in Europe or USA appealing to their governments for further assistance. In Malaysia, the oil palm industry continued to flourish, not by getting hand outs from the tax payers, but by increasing yields, improving productivity and reducing production costs.
It was difficult to obtain accurate figures for the whole industry because of the different accounting systems between plantation companies. However the Unilever plantations in Johore and in Sabah probably gave a reasonable reflection of what had happened throughout the industry. Over the forty years, agricultural yields had increased by 315% and productivity had improved by 419%. The yield increases came from improvements in breeding and husbandry. The productivity increases came from processing improvements, the mechanization of field operations and the introduction of natural pollination.
From 1991 onwards the oil palm industry continued to expand as most of the rubber plantations were replanted with palms. The ownership of the big plantation companies transferred from European to Malaysian hands. The expatriate planters, scientist and engineers, who had established the industry on such firm foundations, disappeared and engineers, disappeared into the pages of history and were replaced by young Malaysian, who have since made their country the center of excellence for the industry worldwide.
Malaysia’s oil palm sector is the great success story of tropical agricultural in the second half of the twentieth century just as rubber was in the first half. With 4.2 million hectares under palms in 2006, the country has become one of the world’s major food producers. Its production of 15 million tons of palm oil, produced by Asians, in their own backyard is sufficient to provide the oils/fats requirements of over a billion people at the current rates of consumption in Asia.
What is most satisfying, ecologically, is that this quantity of food is being produced from perennial plants which provide as sustainable year-round cover and which have approximately the same rate of consumption of carbon dioxide as virgin jungle. Malaysia’s forest cover in year 2006 remains 64% of its land area. Since rubber, cocoa and oil palms are all tree crops, its total tree cover at nearly 78%, is one of the biggest in the entire world.
The oil palm produces more oil per ha than any other oil crop contributing 28% of the world’s output of vegetable oil from only 4% of the world’s planted area of oil crops. The 4.2 millions ha of oil palms in Malaysia, amounting to less than13% of its land area, compares with the 22 million ha of soybeans in Brazil. It is an interesting thought that had Malaysia, to produce its current output of vegetable oil, relied on soybeans as Brazil has done rather than on oil plams, it would have required the clearing of every hectare of standing jungle in the country.
15 May 2007
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