BETONG, Jan 5: Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas has urged the Sarawak Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Authority (Salcra) to come out with a programme to boost oil palm productivity.
Salcra must push its productivity to 20 tonnes per hectare from the overall average of 15 tonnes, as well as speed up the application of Internet of Things (IoT) to boost productivity.
“When productivity is high, this would be translated into good bonus and dividends for workers and landowners concerned.
“So work out a programme to make sure that productivity be pushed up to 20 tonnes per hectare. This is your KPI (Key Performance Indicators), as at the moment the overall Salcra productivity is only 15 tonnes,” Uggah said after visiting Saribas Estate here yesterday.
However, he expressed content that some areas were already showing indications of achieving the target.
“If this can happen there, it can happen in those problematic or less productive areas,” he continued.
The visit was to look into the problematic areas in the Saribas Estate and Uggah was accompanied by Salcra’s new acting general manager Joseph Blandoi.
Uggah, who is also Salcra chairman, said the agency needed to look at all angles to solve issues causing low productivity and come up with recommendations to solve them.
He noted that it was high time for Salcra to embrace more modern technologies in its estate management.
“Salcra has been using drones to identify suitable planting areas in difficult terrains but we need the IoT to monitor, at our fingertips, routines like the application of fertiliser, amount of running water, temperature and the effect of fertiliser to the plant.
“At the moment, Salcra is supplying the standard fertiliser to all its estates statewide, but then we have different soil conditions in these different areas. So we need to upgrade our knowledge on the suitability, the effects,” he said.
Uggah expressed hope he could be on the ground more often to do trouble shootings because the giving of land titles to the landowners are still an outstanding issues.
“We hope to do this starting this June and we also want Salcra to release the land, where owners want to develop on their own,” he said. — DayakDaily
