The Buffalo in Jenderata Estate, United Plantations, Perak.
As usual when I am in Sarawak I look forward to seeing the egrets. My father called them ‘bangau’ and he had told me long ago what they stood for.
Recently on the road from Bintulu to Selangau I saw the white birds as they stalked for insects in the grass. Elegant and confident, they flew and circled, and then landed again to go on feeding. They were used to people.
But now I thought there was something missing.
I had to think hard and I was reminded of the advice of a plantations director, Ken Eales whom I had once worked for. He did not talk much, he kept his distance, but one day on a plane journey when people tended to be a bit more relaxed, I had the chance to ask him about his way of management.
“As a leader I am not close to anybody. I can look at issues so that my likes and dislikes cannot cloud my judgement.”
From his wallet he took out a piece of paper and he read out, “This is what I remind myself. Believe none of what you hear, and half of what you see.”
“There is one more way I look at management,” he went on. He turned the paper over and read again: “Do not see what is there, you must also see what is not there.”
I remembered those words, and realised what I could not see among the egrets. Buffaloes.
When I was working in Sabah on a plantation in the Labuk valley, many years back, I had seen many egrets, but they were among the buffaloes on the plantations. The Bajaus in Kota Belud brought them upriver and I would buy them on behalf of the workers.
The male buffaloes pulled the carts loaded with oil palm bunches. Previously the harvesters carried the bunches in baskets slung on a pole over their shoulders, and the heavy weight had made them stagger to the roadside.
Now the buffaloes did the hard work. They even looked forward to the start of the day. Some could step up and lift the yoke with their horns and put them on their shoulders ready to pull the cart on the word ‘Jalan’. The owners treated them like pets.
The female buffaloes formed a breeding herd. With one hundred and fifty females I would put five bulls, which were selected for their size and temperament. A veterinary officer Paddy Kehoe would come upriver by boat from Sandakan to check the herd.
The use of buffaloes to pull the carts of bunches had come about by chance. In the early days of Pamol Sabah, one of the Filipino workers had brought a buffalo to pull a cart full of bunches. His headman wanted to sack him. He should carry the oil palm bunches like everybody else. At that time the estate manager, Leslie Davidson arrived on the scene.
“He is lazy, sir,” the headman said. “I want to sack him.”
When Davidson saw the buffalo working, he promised the headman he would be sacked.
“The only way you can keep your job is if you can get all the other harvesters to use buffaloes. Like he does.”
To help the harvesters, he arranged to start a breeding herd. At two years old the male buffaloes were put to work.
But even as they worked, the egrets would come to them. The birds would hop on their backs, and look for ticks and flies even in their ears, or waited near their feet to peck at insects that were disturbed in the grass.
But along the road in Sarawak I saw only egrets and few buffaloes. In the plantations I saw workers move the bunches in wheel barrows. Sometimes they used mini-tractors which they called the mechanical buffaloes. The first models appeared thirty years ago, and since then the prices of these machines have gone up many times, as has the price of diesel.
So in Sarawak the buffaloes should come back. Buffaloes now cost much less than a tractor. They feed on grass and their waste becomes fertiliser. The harvesters earn more with higher output. Fewer workers will be needed. A small premium per month will get an insurance cover against losses and thefts. It worked very well when I was running an estate.
As plantations expand and come into harvesting more buffaloes will be needed, especially in the land where there is no peat. Even on slopes the buffaloes can go on the hills, follow the terraces, work downhill and then home for the day. Later they would get a bath and the owners would give them a scrub, and a feed of fresh-cut grass.
Some readers may see this is a chance to start a buffalo farm and a breeding herd. In Indonesia I have seen healthy beasts in Aceh and in Tanah Toraja, pulling ploughs in the padi-fields. In the Nile valley of Egypt they are also raised for milk, made into ghee as cooking fat.
I have looked after buffaloes in my village in Rembau, I knew their characters and temperament, some were leaders, many were not, while a few were rebels. Each day after school I would take them out to graze but let them free after the rice harvest.
They remained in the open fields until the next planting season. Then I would go out and call them, they responded, and it was no problem to lead them back. It was even better if the buffalo had dropped a calf and it followed its mother home with you.
It was not long after the Japanese war that my father had told me about the egrets when they returned to the village. They had landed in the padi-fields.
“That is a sign that peace is with us again.”
My mother could recite to me the nursery rhyme “Bangau oh bangau” and today I can recite it completely with the help of the internet.
It would be great to see more buffaloes in Sarawak. There is plenty of grass, ample space, and water is in abundance. The state is virtually disease-free. Their population can grow with the pace of development in oil palm.
The egrets can feed with the buffaloes. It is a scene I would love to see. It is as green as you can get but don’t talk to the workers about selling their pets.
Read more: http://www.theborneopost.com/2012/12/02/the-buffaloes-in-sarawak-plantations/#ixzz2DqjxHtua
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