Sarawak needs more oil palm seedlings

By SHARON LING

KUCHING: Sarawak needs to produce more oil palm seedlings to meet a shortage faced by plantations in the state. Assistant Minister in the Chief Minister's Department Naroden Majais said the state was short of some 6mil seedlings last year.

"We required 16.4mil seedlings last year but were only able to supply 10mil seedlings. Each new hectare of oil palm requires about 200 seedlings," he said. He added that demand for seedlings would continue to rise because Sarawak was targeting 1mil ha of oil palm plantations, out of which 250,000ha have yet to be developed.

"The land has already been identified and we will develop it in stages. This will require more seedlings, while existing plantations will also need seedlings to replace their older trees. "So there is a big opportunity for local entrepreneurs to produce seedlings on a commercial basis," he said when opening an oil palm seedling entrepreneurship course here Tuesday.

The two-day course, organised by the Bumiputera Entrepreneurship Development Unit in the Chief Minister's Department and the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB), was attended by 45 participants. The unit's adviser Datuk Adzmy Abdullah estimated that Sarawak would need 500ha of nurseries to supply the targeted 1mil ha of oil palm plantations. He said there were currently 130 entrepreneurs in the state cultivating oil palm seedlings but more were needed to meet current and future demand. "For example, there are only four certified nurseries in Mukah supplying 20,000ha of plantations," he said.

He also said cultivating seedlings was a potentially lucrative industry as the production cost was about RM5 per seedling compared to a selling price of RM10 to RM15 for a year-old seedling. On the course, Adzmy said, the participants would sit for theory and practical tests at the end. Those who passed will receive the Oil Palm Nursery Certificate of Competency from MPOB.