The first time I saw oil palm trees was in 1949 when I arrived in Layang Layang in Johor at the former Guthrie estates known as Oil Palm of Malaya or OPM. My brother was a headman of harvesters who climbed the trees to hack the bunches and let them fall. I used to be left alone in the morning and on my walks, I saw the bunches loaded on to railway wagons that went to the mill. Sometimes I would also pick up a red loose fruit and put a fire to it and then eat the flesh. It had a very nice taste as the fat smeared my lips.
Since then the areas planted with palms have increased. Yet when I was an estate manager at Pamol near Kluang in 1975, the production was only 1.2 million tonnes for the whole country. We were no threat to anybody. Soya oil and other vegetable oils were much bigger. Today, however, production has exceeded 20 million tonnes, or 16 times higher. Indonesia since the 1990s has also expanded its planted area to reach a volume of over 30 million tonnes, so together our production can be over 50 million tonnes a year.
So should the competitors of palm oil be worried?
Yes, as we all know from their campaigns. Palm oil has grown to be the biggest source of vegetable oils, and its cost of production is also low when yield per hectare improves. So we can see why the competition for the market has led to accusations about palm oil.
