Palm | Kelapa Sawit

A few weeks ago, I started to carry my camera to work. With the 50mm f/1.8 and the kit lens, the combo is not too big nor heavy. Well, today I came across a nice photo opp, at the oil palm estate.

This is the oil palm's Fresh Fruit Bunch (FFB) where palm oil is extracted from. As you might already know, palm oil has surpassed the soybean oil as the most widely produced vegetable oil in the world. It also has a slew of other applications including making margarine and vitamin E pills.

Each of the little fruit is like a small coconut with a small kernel inside where palm kernel oil is extracted. In the international market, palm oil and palm kernel oil are priced differently. Palm kernel oil can be used to make soap.

Raja (age 30, left) is a Malaysian of the Indian ethnic. He was born in the estate and he has been working here all his life. He is not married but staying together with his girl friend in the estate housing. He makes RM 0.30 (US$ 0.10) per FFB harvested.

Ibrahim (age 26, right) came all the way from Bangladesh to work here. He is married but I didn't ask if he has got any children. I told him that I would give him copies of these photos so that he can send them home to his wife and he was really glad about that. He makes about RM20 (US$ 6.40) per day without over-time.

They work as a team during the harvesting, which occurs optimally once every 20 days. There are two "weapons" of choice to harvest a ripe FFB.

Here is a chisel that is used to hack at trees below 7ft. It is quite heavy and definitely not easy to hack a fruit from the oil palm tree. I've tried.

Here you can see Raja going at it.

For taller trees (to even more than 40ft!), they use a sickle, secured to an aluminum pole for reach.


Here you can see Raja cutting down a frond and an FFB in one swift action. The sickle is really really sharp, but it still takes a lot of effort to cut a fruit. YES, I've also tried that. The trick was not to "chop" the frond, but to "slice" it using the curved blade.

This is what you have after Raja did his round.

Ibrahim came in later to arrange the fallen fronds and to collect the FFBs using a hook and a wheelbarrow.

Ibrahim was wearing a safety helmet because it was raining and not due to any safety reasons :D
At the end of the day, Raja likes to take a sip at the tobacco and relax. So, these are the Unsung Heroes in improving Malaysian's international trade and in helping to solve the world shortage of edible oil. But what does the future hold for them?