LONDON: The Plantation Industry and Commodities Ministry will set up a human resource centre as part of its efforts to resolve the labour problem in the country.
Its Minister Tan Sri Benard Dompok said that the centre was tasked with monitoring the labour needs of the industry at all levels, from the labourers to the administration staff.
Speaking at a dialogue with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Chatham House here on Wednesday, Dompok added that the centre would also be setting up a training centre so that more people, especially the locals can be trained there for work in the oil palm industry.
He explained to the dialogue participants that labour shortage has caused difficulties in some of the plantation to harvest their palm oil fruit bunches.
“I am grappling with the problem as far as labour is concerned,” he said.
To a question why plantations owners preferred to hire foreigners, Dompok explained that locals have different expectations unlike foreigners who work because they want to “have the next meal”.
And in most cases, many of the children of those who worked in palm oil estates are now educated and therefore preferred another career, he added.
Dompok also assured the NGOs present that the Malaysian Government was committed to its pledge of keeping 50 per cent of the country under forest cover.
“A lot of Malaysians will not be happy if more lands are opened up for palm oil plantation as they are as concerned as the rest of the world about the need for conservation,” he said.
The NGOs were mostly concerned about more land being opened up for palm oil plantations and pressed Dompok to tell them if the Government can give its assurance that it will not happen.
He explained that some of the areas the Government cannot control like what the people, especially those holding native customary rights (NCR) lands will do in the future.
“I want to say no (to more lands being opened up) but the land owners have the right to do what they want with their land and this includes selling the land.
Maybe the planters and NGOs can get together and find a solution to the problem of people selling their NCR lands,” he stressed.
According to him, Malaysia has vested interest in keeping its forest because it is well known as an eco-tourism destination.
“Without the environment, there would not be tourism,” he said, adding that he doesn’t see the need to increase the land area for palm oil plantations, only the need to increase the trees’ productivity through various means including genome sequencing.
He reiterated that palm oil uses the least amount of land among all the oils and fats crops but it produces 31 per cent of the world’s oil and fats.
He also said that Malaysia is very supportive of seeing that the oil palm produced in the country is RSPO certified.
However, RSPO produced oil palm is slightly more expensive therefore not many people buy it, he said and expressed hope for cooperation from the NGOs to educate people on the use of RSPO certified oil palm.