TO support his large family, Mohd Zaini Hamdan, 72, has been relying on the income generated from the oil palm grown on his 10-acre plot in Felda Sungai Tengi he first settled on in September 25, 1972.

But with the prices of oil palm dropping steadily every month, the father of 13 says he is at a loss as to how to continue making ends meet.

Oil palm prices hovered around RM500 a tonne in April, but has plunged to RM330 a tonne, and is expected to decline further.

The cost of hiring workers to harvest the oil palm is RM100 a tonne with another RM70 for transport. Settlers like Zaini have had to fork out extra to harvest oil palm from their farms.

“It is better for me to leave the oil palm to rot if harvesting it is no longer profitable.

There is no need to even think about fertiliser if this continues,” he told The Malaysian Insight when met at a recent event that former government adviser Daim Zainuddin was speaking.

“The school term is about to start. It will be headache for all settlers who still have schoolgoing children,” he said.

Zaini is among the 38,000 Felda settlers nationwide who receive between RM800 and RM1,000 a month after handing their farms over to be managed by Felda Technoplant Sdn Bhd.

The cash is a form of a loan, and must be settled using the income from their farms.

But Zaini said with hardly any income over the last few months, he has  missed a month’s repayment.

“It started when the new government took over.

“We are lucky that we missed only a month. In other states, some of defaulted between two and three months.

“It was 10 times better last time, now we are suffering,” he said, referring to the years prior to the Felda Technoplant management scheme.

New government, same problem

Apart from falling oil palm and rubber prices, the 112, 635 settlers nationwide say they are struggling with the rise in the cost of living and their mounting debts to Felda.

“It’s the same politics. No change. The new government brought more trouble. They couldn’t even pay our living allowance ,” said Nasir Md Dan, 77.

“We have 10 acres of land but not enough food, it this right?” he said.

Zainuddin Mat Naan, 60, said the weaknesses in managing the farms and the Felda debt had caused the settlers to fall further into money troubles.

He said settlers like him have run up debts amounting to RM160, 000, which they have given up repaying.

“Former prime minister Najib Razak, whom we called thief and swindler, had given us settlers aid, year-end bonus, early school aid.

“Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, so far (has given) nothing,” said Zainuddin.

He said Felda should just return the land to be managed by the settlers if the agency is no longer able to do so effectively, and the government is unable to fix the falling prices.

“But with a condition, that they must write-off our debts. If the farms do not generate any income how can we settle our debts.

“The RM160,000 debt, not even me, my children, grandchildren and great granchildren would be able to pay,” he said.

Finding a way out

Daim, who is the economic adviser to Dr Mahathir, is in the midst of a nationwide tour to find ways to solve the settlers’ problems.

Yesterday, he issued a stern warning to the new Pakatan Harapan government to address the problems of rising cost of living faced by Malaysians, including Felda settlers.

Daim had also said that among the methods proposed to help settlers raise their income is optimising land use and diversifying their produce to cover the drop in the commodity prices.

“The settlers can rear fish, cows, goat or fast growing crops like cucumber and chilli,” he said.

Majlis Permuafakatan NGO Felda chairman Mazlan Aliman said Felda will do a study on the best substitute cash crop to generate income for the settlers.

“The cabinet has decided to give Farmers Organisation Authority and Mardi the responsibility to find the solution for the settlers, following the decline in the commodity prices,” said Mazlan, who is also the FOA chairman.

Among the steps proposed include downstream activities in the oil palm products, like food and livestock.

Last week, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng announced that households earning less than RM3,000 a month will receive RM100 aid for every schooling child from Year One to Form Five under a special allocation of RM328 million to help parents cope with the cost of living.

Earlier, Putrajaya had announced a special allocation of RM77 million specifically for Felda settlers to help meet their outstanding payments for the current year, and a total of RM164,783,400 to help some 300,000 rubber tappers deal with their loss of income in the current monsoon season. Each tapper will receive RM600. – December 23, 2018.