Invent machine tools
suitable for country's landscape
Daily Express :Published
on: Wednesday, November 26, 2014
|
PUTRAJAYA: The future machine tools and methods to be developed
for the oil palm industry should be more adaptable to soil conditions and
terrain, comfortable, safe, use green energy and semi-automatic to attract more
locals to work in the plantations.
Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister, Datuk Seri
Douglas Uggah Embas, said the machines should be built to accommodate the
narrow terraces and difficult terrain common to Malaysia's landscape.
"The current mechanisation system needs to be further
advanced to meet the future challenges.
"I believe that the harvesting tool and fruit evacuation
techniques to be developed soon will probably be robotic in nature that will
achieve optimum output and capitalise on advanced materials and
technology," he said.
Uggah said this in his address at the Oil Palm Mechanisation
2014 seminar in Bangi near here Tuesday.
The text of his speech was read by Malaysian Palm Oil Board
(MPOB) director-general Datuk Dr Choo Yuen May.
He said failure to fully implement mechanisation in the
plantation industry was mainly due to the non-systematic and non-concentrated
approach of looking at the problems in totality and in a multi-disciplinary
manner.
"The advances in field mechanisation are also hindered by
the non-availability of suitable prime movers to suit the local terrain,"
he said.
The minister said the MPOB has made breakthroughs in developing
farm machineries that were being used by the plantations with the establishment
of the Farm Mechanisation Centre.
The MPOB's efforts in inventing and developing farm machineries
had so far resulted in the development of over 35 technologies and several of
them had already been commercialised, he said.
Uggah said the palm oil industry was still dependent on labour,
particularly in the estates, despite the improvements and availability of
machineries.
As of September this year, the total workforce in the oil palm
plantations was 451,728 workers, of which foreigners made up 352,970, mostly
working as harvesting and fruit evacuation operators, he said. – Bernama
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