BREEDING rabbits and planting vegetables are among the small-scale projects Felda has started to help its youth who lost incomes and jobs due to the eight-week movement-control order (MCO) to fight the coronavirus.

These are part of the plantation settlement’s “Dari Bandar ke Felda” (From the city to Felda) initiative, said settlers’ welfare groups working with the management and Putrajaya to create new income sources for their second and third generations.

Settlers also expect their incomes to improve due to higher demand and prices for palm oil as world production continues to be affected due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Demand from Malaysia’s buyer India has improved starting in March, said industry officials after the change in government from Pakatan Harapan to Perikatan Nasional in late February.

Crude palm oil prices have improved to RM2,412 per tonne in June from RM2,382 in March when the MCO was first enforced till May 11.

Despite the MCO, average prices for palm oil in March, April and May this year were higher than the same period in 2019.

According to the Malaysian Palm Oil Council, the average price in March was RM2,382 per tonne as opposed to RM1,904 in 2019.

In April this year, it was RM2,299 compared with RM2,019 in 2019 and RM2,074 in May compared with RM1,947 in May 2019.

In June, prices went up to RM 2,412 compared with RM1,968 in June 2019.

There are 269 Felda settlements across Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah and about one million individuals in more than 112,600 settler families who depend on palm oil for their livelihood.

Felda youth council president Fadzli Hassan said the “Back to Felda” initiative is to help families, particularly the second- and third-generation settlers, who are in their 20s to 40s, earn an additional income.

“Palm oil cultivation will still be the family’s main income but we also want to generate different income sources,” said Fadzli.

“Some of the youth live in Felda and some live outside. Those living outside have suffered the same difficulties as other people. So, we are trying to help them come back and do these projects in Felda.”

The first two programmes are to breed rabbits for their meat and for planting vegetables through fertigation as the demand for these two is high in the market.

In both programmes, unused land will be provided in Felda schemes while the council is looking at getting funding from Putrajaya’s Penjana economic recovery package, said Fadzli.

Under Penjana, RM350 million has been allocated for food and commodities planters, while schemes are being provided to train farm workers.

“We also plan to be marketers and distributors for the produce and work with the participants on a contract farming basis,” Fadzli said.

Higher prices, better incomes

Settlers’ groups said some families lost their incomes during the MCO even as the plantation industry was one of those which were allowed to operate.

Operations, however, were limited to harvesting and transporting fresh fruit bunches to refineries, but other work such as clearing plantations, spraying pesticides and spreading fertiliser was suspended.

“We had asked for and received permission to harvest our fruits, otherwise they would have gone to waste,” said Zukefli Nordin, who heads a second-generation settlers’ group called SGK2F.

Felda also suspended the collection of debts from settlers to give them breathing room during the MCO, said Zulkefli, of Felda Kahang in Johor.

Another group, the National Felda Settlers’ Association, said second-generation settlers who made money from providing the plantation support services, such as applying pesticides and fertilisers, lost their incomes during the MCO.

“So, food banks were established in all schemes to help everyone whose incomes were affected,” said association president Sulong Jamil Mohd Sharif.

“Every week, we would distribute rice, vegetables and sardines to help settlers’ families affected by the MCO.”

The restrictions on these jobs were lifted during the conditional MCO, said Sulong Jamil.

Starting in June, settlers saw their incomes improve in tandem with the rise in world CPO prices, he added.

“Demand has come back and because the whole world was affected by the pandemic, production has gone down and prices have gone up,” said Sulong Jamil. – August 13, 2020.