Oil plam seeds scams

It was reported recently that there were syndicates deceiving planters especially smallholders into buying fake oil palm germinated seeds which are not of genuine DxP hybrid crosses. MPOB managed to seize approximately 6 million fake oil palm seeds last year but there were no reports as to whether the culprits were being identified or brought to the court. Essentially, the fake oil palm seeds are more likely to pose severe implications to smallholders as the big plantation companies would not resort to unreliable sources of oil palm germinated seeds. Oil palm trees once planted will continuously produce fruits for 20 to 25 years until the palms are too tall to be harvested. Hence, should low quality planting materials are used; it will affect the income of the planters for the rest of the economic life span of the palms until and unless the low yielding palms are chopped down and replanted.

MPOB should reveal who are the culprits involved in producing and selling the fake oil palm seeds. By so doing, the smallholders will not fall into the traps of these illegal seed producers. We know that there are such a scam going on through newspaper but don’t expect the smallholder to keep themselves up-to-date with all these development in plantation industry.  It is also imperative to make sure that the genuine oil palm planting materials are available to the smallholders so that their income is guaranteed by decent yield. MPOB should implement strict enforcement to weed out all illegal seed producers and the culprits involved should be made known to the public especially smallholders so that they would not be cheated into buying low quality planting materials.