THE labour shortage faced by way of Malaysian oil palm estates will result in the countrywide sparkling fruit bunch (FFB) yield declining in addition this yr, says the Malaysian Estate Owners’ Association (MEOA).

Malaysia recorded an FFB yield of 16.73 tonnes of oil in keeping with hectare closing 12 months compared with 17.19 tonnes and 17.89 tonnes in 2018 and 2017 respectively. The indicator peaked in 2017 earlier than the present day downward trend.

“We ought to be achieving 25 to 26 tonnes/ha with the planting substances we’ve. Looking at the yields, something is manifestly wrong,” says Jeffrey Ong, beyond president of MEOA.

The hassle is that the fruit is not being harvested, as oil palm estates depending on foreign employees conflict with a scarcity of manpower underneath a prolonged freeze on hiring by means of the authorities due to Covid-19, at the same time as locals shun working in plantations.

“The labour scarcity could be very acute now and has created a massive effect at the smallholders or even the large boys, who are not taking part in the coolest CPO fees now. It’s a real waste,” says Datuk Nageeb Wahab, president of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association.

Ong says maximum estates inside the us of a aren’t most effective facing a shortage of harvesters, in addition they do now not have sufficient preferred workers to use fertiliser, clean overgrowth or cast off decaying fronds from the trees. He factors to a pre-MCO survey undertaken with the aid of the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) that showed a scarcity of 31,021 harvesters among respondents, which protected 76% of the industry.

According to MEOA, primarily based on a conservative estimate of productivity in keeping with harvester of 1.Five tonnes of FFB an afternoon at 280 running days a yr, the crop loss quantities to 17.143 million tonnes a year or near a 20% loss in yield. This interprets to a loss in production of three.429 million tonnes of crude palm oil (CPO) and 857,000 tonnes of palm kernel a 12 months.

Malaysian production of CPO fell 3.76% to 19.1 million tonnes in 2020 from 19.86 million tonnes in 2019. Production is anticipated at 19.Five million to 19.6 million tonnes this year.

As for hiring locals, Ong laments that the fulfillment of the country’s education machine has resulted in the young people’s resistance to running on estates as harvesters or popular workers. Logic dictates that nearby workers could opt to absorb extra comfy manufacturing unit jobs, however these jobs are nevertheless being stuffed by overseas employees and not locals.

Meanwhile, oldsters in the kampungs see property work as supplementary to profits from their very own land. “Very few work [at oil palm estates] complete-time. Many typically work for pocket cash,” Ong explains.

Calls to mechanise functions at oil palm estates had been heeded with the aid of the huge businesses however harvesting FFB continues to be labour extensive, requiring specific skill sets.

“The pandemic has been an eye fixed-opener for the industry and suggests how based it’s far on foreign people. There’s an pressing want to automate and mechanise. We’ve mechanised plenty, however harvesting FFB nevertheless requires guide labour,” says Nageeb.

Note that Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Datuk Dr Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali announced early remaining month the established order of the Mechanisation and Automation Research Consortium of Oil Palm (Marcop) in an effort to contain the participation of MPOB and industry gamers.