Poor Roads Hamper Productivity

This is my 1st article published in The Planter (Vol 65, No. 763, October 1989) It was written after I was transferred to Morisem Estate, Sabah, in December 1988. Such bitter experiences of crop losses due to poor roads often damaged by rainy weather about 20 years ago, sad to say, are currently being repeated in many plantations in Indonesia. Hope other planters can comment and share their experiences too.

XiFu

As the Chinese goes," Once a XiFu (Master), always a XiFu" I believe this is true to us whose profession none other than planters.

There were so many things to learn, from jungle clearing to nursery establishment, land preparation and planting of cover crop, road construction and building log bridges, and finally the planting of our crop, be it rubber, cocoa or oil palm.

As the rubber, cocoa or oil palm trees grew, we gathered our planting experiences and grew from young planters to senior planters.

Then we chopped down rubber trees for planting oil palm as the old tappers retired, and we also chopped down cocoa trees for oil palm when cocoa price dropped drastically.

When we started to replant oil palm to oil palm, normally at 25 years cycle, then we realised that we have also grew old. Nevertheless, for old planters like us, we always remain as proud planters.