Extract palm oil by using hand presses: Expert
Published on: Thursday, December 20, 1962
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Mr Hartley spent a week touring this country at the end of October with the Director of Agriculture, Mr F.J.H Berwick, looking at oil palm in the Labuk and Klias areas.
He says in his report that during his visit to the Far East doubts were often expressed as to whether oil palm was a small-holders’ crop.
“It is difficult for anyone coming from West Africa where the farmers often measure their holdings by a number of very tall palms rather than a planted acreage - to understand why there should be any misgivings”
Provided it is recognized that the oil palm requires special attention at the early stages and that holdings must be well-maintained , the oil palm seems in many ways ideally suited to cultivation in family lots , states Mr Hartley.
In many estates harvesting is carried out by the family working together he says, the men cutting, the women carrying and the children picking up loose fruit referring to projects in North Borneo, Hartley comments: “The schemes at present proposed seem suitably sized and sited and should give the owners a good income”.
Discussing the’ question of processing, Mr Hartley says: “The question has been asked whether such schemes should adjoin an estate with a large mill or whether viable schemes can be established on their own with processing dome in the first instance at least, by the recently-introduced Stork hydraulic hand-press”.
Referring to the Kulai scheme in Malaya, which he also visited, Mr Hartley says that there the small-holders are placed on already prepared and planted acres, from which the bunches of fruit will be carried some 15 miles to an estate mill.
In Eastern Nigeria well over a thousand of the cage-type of hand-press are in continuos operation mainly in the hands of small businessmen” who buy in loose fruit and sell oil with a fatty acid content of 3 1/2pc.
The operation of an oil mill, whether hand-operated or mechanically driven, centres round the oil extracting apparatus and the rate of production depends on its capacity, continues Mr Hartley.
One press would in the early years of production be capable of processing fruit from about 300 acres of oil palm.
If full production rose to ten or twelve tons per acre, there would be need for one press for every hundred acres (or every ten small-holders) when full production is reached.
Mr Hartley points out that the number of presses could be reduced if shift work was adopted as normal practice.
Mr Hartley also mentions the importance of establishing nurseries in or very near to the area to be planted. A good water supply and good communications are also important he emphasizes.
Agricultural development in North Borneo will be seriously retarded unless the internal communications are quickly improved, stated Mr Hartley, pointing out that the construction of trunk roads in other under-developed countries have proved their worth, for example in Sierra Leona.
Feeder roads must follow the trunk roads, he adds. Mr Hartley comments:
“The standard of road being built from Sandakan towards Jesselton appeared to me to be out of keeping with the development prospects of the area, being narrow and winding with parts of it near Sandakan already inadequate for the traffic it is taking”.
Mr Hartley states: “Capital is entering North Borneo at a rate which would be the envy of many other under-developed countries where good road systems already exist but where income per head of population is much lower”.
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