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Wanting: Sime Darby Plantation Bhd (SDP) aims to use 100% local labor at its oil palm plantations by 2027, except for fruit picking.
Zulkifli Zainal Abidin, chief human resources officer of the company, said that the policy was implemented under the “local program” started in 2019, which will introduce mechanical technology in the plantation sector.
He said examples of the use of machinery in plantation management to replace the phased use of foreign labor include the use of drone technology and remote control technology to apply fertilizers and control insects and pests.
“We hope that by 2027, we will have a local workforce, apart from those who harvest or pick (oil palm) fruits in the plantations,” he told reporters during a working visit by the deputy minister of plantations and origins Datuk Tan Feng Heng today Attended “SD Plantation Future Fest ’24”.
“Local workers are less interested in the work as it is the most difficult, especially involving trees that are too tall.”
He said through the project, his team also plans to have one worker for every 17.5 hectares of oil palm estates by 2027, compared to the current one worker for every 8 hectares.
He detailed that his team aims to recruit more than 700 skilled local workers in all SDP-owned plantations across the country during the same period.
“We are also focusing on creating prototypes, especially for oil palm harvesters. This is because harvesting these fruits on oil palm estates, especially from taller trees, is very difficult,” he said.
The two-day inaugural SD Plantation Future Fest ’24, which begins today, aims to showcase the company’s latest progress in transforming oil palm plantation work into a more modern and advanced initiative through mechanization, automation and digitalisation.
Meanwhile, SDP and the University of Malaya also signed two memorandums of agreement (MoA) on the second phase of the development of laser cutting tools. The technology is being tested for harvesting palm fruit bunches.
The second MoU is between SDP and the Institute of Plantation and Commodities Malaysia (IMPAC) for the Machine Expert Development Programme, a new work area created by SDP based on the use of new advanced machines currently being used on their plantations inside.
Also present on the working visit was Social Democratic Party Chairman Tan Sri Dr Nik Norzruthani. – Bernama
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