Oil palm plantations are highly dependent on manual labour. It has been estimated that, on the average, about 50 man-days are required per hectare. In recent years the agricultural sector of the industry has experienced labour shortage problems. As a result numerous operations including harvesting, and other agronomic activities in the plantations have been significantly affected, with inevitable fall in oil production. Therefore, PORIM had directed its R&D efforts to resolve the labour shortage problem to find out how certain operations of the plantation can be mechanized with concomitant saving of manual labour.

Main Researcher: Dr Ahmad Hitam