Malaysia is facing an acute shortage of agricultural land. One of the alternatives is to go for marginal areas such as hilly land and peat. Through R&D, these areas can be cultivated with oil palm with good returns in spite of high development cost. In the hilly areas, oil palm planted on terraces is much easier to reach by machine than those without terrace. Small machines with a capacity of 500 kg to 600 kg have been found suitable. As terraces are generally narrow, thus bigger machines are unable to move on the terraces. In sandy and young soils as in Sabah terracing is not possible, thus the use of cableway system as an alternative.

Main Research: En. Mohd Solah Deraman