Without weevil, oil palms would struggle to fruit efficiently, yields would fall, and much of the modern palm oil industry would grind to a quieter, costlier halt. — BloombergPic
WHEN people think of oil palm, they picture tall trees, heavy fruit bunches, harvesters wielding long poles, and tankers hauling golden oil.
Few, if any, imagine an insect smaller than a grain of rice quietly making all of this possible.
Yet, hidden within the folds of oil palm flowers lives one of the plantation’s most important – and least celebrated – workers: the oil palm pollinating weevil, scientifically known as elaeidobius kamerunicus. They are beetles with distinctive long snouts.
This tiny beetle does not appear in annual reports. It does not attend conferences, issue press releases or feature in glossy sustainability statements.
But without it, oil palms would struggle to fruit efficiently, yields would fall, and much of the modern palm oil industry would grind to a quieter, costlier halt.
Unlike crops that rely on wind or bees, oil palm depends on a very specific partner.
Male and female flowers – inflorescences – bloom separately, even on the same palm, and require a reliable courier to move pollen from one to the other.
Enter the weevil – drawn not by duty or design, but by scent, food and instinct - unknowingly performing one of agriculture’s most precise acts of matchmaking.
This is a story of biology rather than machinery, of cooperation rather than control.
A reminder that even in a highly industrialised crop, nature still insists on having a say – often through the smallest of voices.
So before we speak of yields, sustainability or productivity, it is worth pausing to meet this quiet enabler.
Because in the world of oil palm, big outcomes often begin with very small heroes.
And now, let me humbly introduce myself.
I am an oil palm pollinating weevil - tiny, dark brown and barely two to four millimetres long.
Most people would never notice me. A speck in a vast emerald sea of palms. Yet unseen, I am busier than bees. Small, yes – but very essential.
Think of me as oil palm’s tireless Cupid. No wings of romance, no arrows of desire – just pollen, persistence and impeccable timing.
Oil palm Chanel No. 5
At dawn, when the plantation still holds its breath and the sun hesitates just above the fronds, a fragrance drifts through the air. Sweet. Spicy. Slightly anise-like. Not loud. Not crude. But deliberate.
If oil palms had a luxury brand for its scent, this would be OP Chanel No. 5.
The scent is called estragole – a volatile compound released by male oil palm flowers at precisely the right moment in their bloom cycle.
To humans, it registers as a faint botanical perfume. To me? Irresistible.
It is not merely a smell; it is a summon. A breakfast bell. A love letter written in chemistry.
Drawn by this aromatic seduction, I stir from my hiding place and crawl toward the source. I slip into the soft folds of the male spikelets – the palm’s perfumeries – where estragole hangs thick in the air.
My reward is nectar, shelter and pollen – fine golden grains that cling eagerly to my body.
I do not know chemistry. I do not understand formulas. I only know instinct.
Yet in following this fragrance, I become an unwitting courier of destiny.
Dust myself once in pollen, then answer the next scented call – often from a receptive female flower – and the transaction is complete.
Romance accomplished. Future secured. Without estragole, the affair collapses. No scent, no attraction. No attraction, no visit. No visit, no pollination.
The oil palm’s love life depends not on chance, but on timing, chemistry and a perfume refined by evolution itself.
Great matchmaker
Oil palms produce male and female flowers on the same tree – a geisha and a samurai housed in one body.
Their blooms release fragrances like carefully timed invitations.
My job? To ferry pollen from one to the other – a bit of matchmaking that turns blossoms into fruit bunches.
As I flit – or more accurately, scuttle – between flowers, I harbour no grand plans. I follow scent trails, seek food and look for mates. Yet by doing so, I accidentally fulfil the oil palm’s greatest wish: pollination.
With every step, pollen coats my body, then transfers to waiting female flowers, igniting the chain reaction that fills kitchens, industries and economies.
How I changed the game
In the late 1970s, Malaysia’s oil palm industry faced a rather unromantic predicament.
Natural pollination was inadequate. Fruit set was inconsistent. Hand pollination – often carried out by women wielding pollen puffers – was labour-intensive, costly and imperfect.
Then came the breakthrough. At the behest of Leslie Davidson, then chairman of Unilever Plantations, Datuk Rahman Anwar Syed, a distinguished Pakistani entomologist, set off for Cameroon between 1977 and 1978 on what would become a quietly transformative scientific mission.
But this was no lone-wolf expedition. It was a team effort that crossed seas, disciplines – and even, refreshingly for its time, gender lines.
Joining the quest were Kang Siew Ming, head of the plant quarantine service, Department of Agriculture, Peninsular Malaysia; Dr Tay Eong Bok, assistant director (Research), Department of Agriculture Sabah; Zam Binti Ab Karim, entomologist, Department of Agriculture, Peninsular Malaysia; and Mahbob Abdullah, whose name many planters still remember with a smile – and a receipt book for collecting funds from planters.
Together, these four Malaysians formed what might fondly be called the “African Safari Team 1980” – not in search of lions and elephants, but in pursuit of something far smaller, far more elusive, and infinitely more consequential: the weevil that would change the fate of oil palm.
Long before “diversity” became a corporate buzzword, this small, determined team embodied it – united not by slogans, but by science, curiosity and a shared mission: to let nature show the way.
What they found was me – an insect not just competent at pollination, but exquisitely designed for it.
In 1980 I arrived in Kuala Lumpur under strict quarantine. By early 1981, the first wave of us was released at Pamol Kluang, followed soon after by Pamol Sabah.
We wasted no time. We settled in. We worked. We matched flowers like seasoned professionals.
The results were dramatic.
Fruit set improved. Extraction rates climbed. Yields surged. Hand pollination faded into history. Malaysia’s oil palm industry quietly entered a new era of efficiency – powered not by machines, but by beetles.
Rewind: When cupid needed a passport
Rewind the story, and the plot thickens.
Leslie Davidson was instrumental in bringing in the weevils – tiny creatures with a work ethic that puts most of us to shame – quietly sparing the industry from endless hand pollination and replacing it with nature’s own tireless workforce.
Having spent years in Cameroon and Nigeria, Davidson noticed something curious: oil palm pollination in West Africa thrived even in heavy rain, conditions that crippled manual pollination in Malaysia.
The explanation, he suspected, was not better weather or better workers – but better insects.
Convinced that oil palms needed pollinators, not puffers, he rallied Unilever and enlisted the Commonwealth Institute for Biological Control (CIBC).
The conclusion was simple and uncomfortable: West African palms enjoyed insect-assisted romance. Malaysian palms did not.
Before the weevil arrived, estates relied on hundreds of workers hand-pollinating every receptive flower - often using “vaginal douches” as pollen applicators, to London headquarters’ astonishment.
Davidson’s deadpan reply? “On the contrary - we are trying to increase fertility among the trees.”
Undeterred by textbooks insisting palms were wind-pollinated, Davidson pushed for proof. The research confirmed what nature already knew: oil palm pollination belonged to the weevils.
A tiny insect. A transformational love story.
A short, busy life
Sadly, my life is brief - just a few weeks - but extraordinarily consequential.
I live fast, love efficiently, and leave early. Male inflorescences are not merely dining halls; they are nurseries, maternity wards and training grounds, where my young are born and raised within the protective folds of flower bracts.
I am holometabolous. Don’t panic - it’s not a disease. It simply means I go through a complete transformation: egg, larva, pupa, adult.
Think caterpillar to butterfly, grub to beetle. The larva looks nothing like me, eats with abandon, then retreats into a quiet, non-feeding pupal pause - nature’s version of a sabbatical - before emerging fully formed and ready for work.
No midlife crisis. No retirement planning. My life is measured not in years, but in pollen-laden days.
Each generation is precisely timed to the flowering rhythms of the palm - a biological clock calibrated by nature, not spreadsheets, key performance index’s or quarterly reviews. Short life. Busy schedule. No wasted motion.
When love falls short
Even the best-orchestrated romances can falter. When there are too few of us to ferry pollen, oil palms may slip into parthenocarpic syndrome, producing fruits without seed or kernels.
Pale, white fruits. Empty promises. Oil-free disappointments that drag down extraction rates and unsettle millers.
Too many parthenocarpic fruits in a bunch, and productivity suffers.
Lately, growing whispers in the industry suggest that my kind alone may not always be sufficient in certain plantations - perhaps due to weather extremes, pesticide pressure or disrupted flowering patterns.
Could oil palm’s steamy saga be entering a new chapter? Possibly. Nature rarely stands still. And neither should science.
Invisible yet indispensable
Humans seldom praise me. I eat, mate and die in silence.
Yet without me, fruit set falters, yields decline, and entire supply chains feel the tremor.
I am a tiny beetle with the power to shape fortunes, because the oil palm - for all its height and heft - depends on small things done right.
My existence is a reminder that the greatest heroes need not roar. Sometimes, they simply pollinate.
Joseph Tek Choon Yee has over 30 years of experience in the plantation industry, with a strong background in oil palm research and development, C-suite leadership and industry advocacy. The views expressed here are the writer’s own.
