Malaysian palm oil industry : new challenges and perspectives
The successful oil palm plantation industry may be held as one of our biggest achievements in the 20th Century. It is one of the few industries with a real competitive edge over others and is an acknowledged leader in the highly competitive oils and fats market in terms of productivity, technologies, resources and services. However, the prognosis for the plantation industry's leadership role and future success in Malaysia is possibly not as bright as previously. We have seen the failures of the large rubber and cocoa plantation industries within our careers and do not wish to see this repeated in the oil palm plantation sector during our life time. The industry is traditionally capital, management, knowledge, labor and infrastructure intensive and fortunately, the plantation companies have been able to leverage economies of scale well and succeeded probably beyond its early proponent's dreams. Recent developments from large increases in input costs - imported fertilizers and machinery, oil prices, dependence on foreign labor coupled with indeterminate policy changes, internal and external transport costs - are all impacting significantly on the bottom lines of plantations. Besides the above, the country has very limited additional suitable land for expansion and many companies are struggling to have adequate workers for even basic planting operations as well as competent managerial and technical staff. Some of the plantation companies' resources are stretched from their large expansion in Indonesia and elsewhere. There have also been consumer pressures about quality, nutrition, food safety, traceability and supply chain management. The growths of civil society activism are raising concerns about governance and accountability, environmental impacts and reporting, and sustainability criteria, besides vision and values. The trend today is that everybody is virtually a stakeholder in everything.
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| Format: | Digital revista |
| Language: | spa |
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Fedepalma
2007
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| Online Access: | https://publicaciones.fedepalma.org/index.php/palmas/article/view/1313 |
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