The employee is inspecting the quality of seeds to ensure that only the best quality planting material is being selected. Fresh water is sprayed to enhance seed’s moisture hence maintaining their freshness.
JERANTUT: Felda Global Ventures Holdings Bhd (FGV) is allocating RM40mil a year for research and development (R & D) for its two research companies, FGV R & D Sdn Bhd (FGVR & D) and FGV Applied Technologies Sdn Bhd (FGVAT), to improve their upstream and downstream technologies.
FGV R & D Sdn Bhd chief executive officer Sharifah Shahrul Rabiah Syed Alwee said FGVR & D, which was tasked with R & D of upstream activities, was generally involved in biological sciences studies, while FGVAT focused on downstream R & D, including food and non-food applications of palm oil.
She said FGVR & D was allocated RM30mil per annum, while FGVAT, RM10mil per annum, Both companies employ 460 people.
“FGVR & D’s allocation is fully funded by Felda Agricultural Services Sdn Bhd (FASSB), a unit entrusted with commercialising the upstream R & D output, while FGVAT gets its allocation from other FGV entities.
“Through the product commercialisation, some of the FASSB’s profits will be ploughed back into R & D,” she told reporters during a two-day media familiarisation trip to FGV R & D’s research and development facilities in Enstek, Negri Sembilan, and Tekam, Pahang, recently.
FASSB was allocated 12,000ha, of which 2,400ha are used for R & D purposes like breeding trials, agronomy trials and crop protection trials, while the rest are used for commercial plantation which adopted R & D findings.
“That is why this plantation has a higher yielding compared with other FGV’s plantations, and it is also FASSB’s main revenue generator, “ she added.
FASSB registered revenue of RM210mil and a net profit of RM65mil in 2016. It was expected to increase its revenue to RM236mil this year, she said.
Sharifah said among the R & D output that had been commercialised were planting materials like palm oil seeds, seedlings, clone trees, agronomic products and crop protection products.
FGV currently holds the largest domestic market share of 43% for oil palm seeds, selling about 20.26 million seeds out of 50.14 million seeds sold in Malaysia in 2016.
She said FGV also has the largest production capacity of 30 million seeds per year from its three seed production centres in Jerantut (Tun Razak Agricultural Services Centre - the biggest), Sabah and Ulu Belitung (Johor).
This year, the group targets to produce 25 million seeds (priced at RM2.35 per seed), 2.1 million seedlings and one million clones.
“Five million of these seeds are for FGV Group while the balance are for local and global consumption.
“The domestic market still makes up over 90% of FGV’s seeds sale, and the rest is exported to various countries, including the Philippines, Thailand, Africa and Indonesia,” Sharifah said.
The demand for seeds and clone products relied on replanting activities, which is a continuous process but fluctuates depending on the weather conditions and commodity (crude palm oil) price, she said, adding that FGV alone was replanting 15,000ha per year.
For the last two years, she said the replanting exercise was delayed due to the El Nino phenomenon, while during La Nina, which is expected this year, more replanting activities could be carried out.
After going through years of research, among seeds progeny that had been commercialised by FGV are Yangambi ML161, Three-way and Yangambi GT-1, a ganoderma tolerant seeds, she said.
“Basically, consumers want more Three-way seeds, but there are limitations in production capacity currently at two million per year due to unavailability of sufficient mother palm to generate numbers, hence the big chunk of the sales was contributed by Yangambi ML161,” she said.
She said FGVR & D was also expected to come out with four to five products a year, including actual products and an advisory project this year, and was now working on drought tolerance planting materials and irrigation system on some FGV plantations.
Malaysia has the knowledge and talents to do research but to execute the knowledge requires resources which FGV has the upper hand as it has land resources and highly experienced team, according to her.
FGVR & D has envisioned to come up with the “Palm of your dream” trees for every planters - short plants which could ease harvesting and allow longer yielding life span of more than 25 years, compact which enable more trees to be planted in one ha - as well as fruits with higher quantity and quality.
Normal plantation could have 136 trees per ha, while for compact could have up to 148-160 per ha.
Meanwhile, FGVAT chief executive officer Azman Jamin said his outfit had commercialised a unit mechanisation product, namely harvesting machine “cantas”, for which 30 had been produced for FASSB and another 30 for the open market.
The company is also in the midst of fine tuning its mobile bunch catcher machine and expects to perfect it by year-end for FGV own use before offering it to the open market.
FGVAT, through its food technology research, was also developing products for another FGV unit, Delima Oil Products Sdn Bhd, and other parties who were keen on them, he added. - Bernama
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