Since my younger days I know that a farmer would not be a rich man even though he works very hard to raise up whatever he plants. Simple, you may have a bountiful harvest but the price of your produce may not be good depending on demands and other unforseeable factors. My father was a padi farmer cultivating a few acres of padi in Arau, Perlis way back in the sixties and seventies and becoming a fishmonger in the eighties as it was difficult to earn a living planting padi. Sometime, the whole padi field could be flooded just before harvest rendering huge damages and alas, wasted effort for the past 3,4 months with a dismal return. Such is a life of a padi farmer.
Knowing the difficulty and hardship of those people raising their families by farming, naturally I would not want to associate myself with anything to do with farming as I grow up. But then I went to university studying plant breeding and ended up working as an oil palm agronomist since 1995. I remember I attended an interview with IOI Corporation way back in 1995 when the human resource manager Mr. T.M.B Krishnan asked me can I work in a plantation with a doubtful-look as I was thin and skinny at that point in time. I told him I was raised up in a padi planting family in a small kampung and he nodded instantly seemingly agreeing that a young man coming from a padi planting family should have no problem working in an estate.
Of late many smallholders crying foul as they are unable to sell their oil palm fruits to the millers as the millers limiting their intake due to poor CPO price. Despite the bumper crops, some smallholders are desperately seeing their crops rotting on the trees as the price was too low for them to make a decent profit should they harvest. The cost of production for smallholders is always on the higher side as compared to plantation companies as they need to pay higher harvesting and transportation cost. Smallholders normally depend on FFB collectors to buy their fruits as they do not have transport to deliver their crops directly to the mills.
Time changes, technology advances, but the hardship and grievances of farmers seem uncontainable.
Knowing the difficulty and hardship of those people raising their families by farming, naturally I would not want to associate myself with anything to do with farming as I grow up. But then I went to university studying plant breeding and ended up working as an oil palm agronomist since 1995. I remember I attended an interview with IOI Corporation way back in 1995 when the human resource manager Mr. T.M.B Krishnan asked me can I work in a plantation with a doubtful-look as I was thin and skinny at that point in time. I told him I was raised up in a padi planting family in a small kampung and he nodded instantly seemingly agreeing that a young man coming from a padi planting family should have no problem working in an estate.
Of late many smallholders crying foul as they are unable to sell their oil palm fruits to the millers as the millers limiting their intake due to poor CPO price. Despite the bumper crops, some smallholders are desperately seeing their crops rotting on the trees as the price was too low for them to make a decent profit should they harvest. The cost of production for smallholders is always on the higher side as compared to plantation companies as they need to pay higher harvesting and transportation cost. Smallholders normally depend on FFB collectors to buy their fruits as they do not have transport to deliver their crops directly to the mills.
Time changes, technology advances, but the hardship and grievances of farmers seem uncontainable.
2 comments:
sorry bro,let me digress a bit here. frus betul, how can Baginda Razak know that Najib never met Altantuya, was he with him 24/7..
silly buggard, he thinks we are all so stupid
Bro, just think that we are watching another soap opera, with all these biggest sandiwara. good luck Malaysians, you and me included.
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