Uggah receiving souvenir from Vasco.
LUNDU: The management of Sarawak Land Consolidation & Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra) has been given new Key Performance Index (KPI) to double up its oil palm plantation production, increase efficiency and migrate to Internet of Things (IoT) to reduce production cost.
Its chairman, Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas announced the tall order after officiating the 6th Ahli Jawatankuasa Pembangunan Ladang Salcra (AJPLS) conference closing ceremony at Salcra Bajo Training Centre near Lundu Friday night.
“We want to increase our production from 12 tonnes per hectare to 20 tonnes per hectare by 2025,” Uggah stressed.
Uggah, who is also Deputy Chief Minister, revealed that average production for the industry corporate plantation now stands at 22 tonnes per hectares.
To achieve this, Uggah said Salcra will be carrying out pilot project to introduce IoT in their oil palm plantations with sensors to monitor workers, monitoring of soil fertility, monitoring fertiliser, to monitor the growth of plants and monitoring movement of machineries.
Uggah said the low production can be attributed to multi issues that include poor management, plants not being fertilised, fruits not harvested and not enough workers.
“With the latest technology, we hope that the data can be transmitted to headquarters. You know a good plant just by looking at the colour of the leaves. We will use drone to fly over them to take pictures,” he said.
Uggah said Salcra will also be using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to map the ground before they start planting.
“With the mapping, they can work out the slope or terrace the slope, design the road to maximise planting area and reduce our production cost,” he explained.
When asked to comment on the biggest issue brought up by the participating landowners, Uggah said out of the 18,000 areas, some 12,038 areas have been surveyed and issued with land title under section 18, 6,199 have been surveyed but not issued with titles yet and 7,129 areas are yet to be surveyed.
“We undertake to issue title within 6 months for the 6,199 areas that have been surveyed, for those 7,199 not surveyed yet we will spend RM5 million of Salcra money to hire private surveyor to do surveying within two years,” he said.
He stressed that Salcra has been given new KPI of issuing titles three years after planting.
“Land title is the biggest issue among land owners,” he lamented.
Earlier in his speech, Uggah thanks the Salcra management and staff for their never-say-die attitude when helping the government to set up the land development body against all odds as the challenges are growing by the day.
Apart from technical management of farms, land issues and bureaucracy red tapes, Uggah said Salcra is the most popular subject online, especially on social media and chat groups, by haters who wanted to see them fail.
“When we first started, all of you must have remembered how they said that we – me and Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr Alfred Jabu will be selling off the participants’ lands. Today, it has been proven we are not selling an inch of your land, but give them title under section 18 and generate good income for you,” he said.
Also present at the function were Science Research Advisor to Government (SRAG) Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr Alfred Jabu Numpang and his wife Tan Sri Datuk Seri Empiang Jabu, Uggah’s wife Datin Amar Doreen Mayang, Salcra General Manager Datu Vasco Sabat Singkang and Chief Minister’s political secretary Dr Richard Rapu.