KUCHING, March 7: Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (Soppoa) is initiating a research project with Curtin University Malaysia (Curtin Malaysia) to find solutions and improve current processes in producing organic fertilizer from palm oil by-products.
Soppoa chief executive officer Dr Felix Moh Mee Ho said the project will be a tripartite collaboration between industry, learning institute and State government, that also complies with laws, rules and regulations relevant to the operation.
“Soppoa is actively promoting the adoption and implementation of sustainable and good agricultural practice.
“Integrating circular economy into the production of palm oil is an effective solution to optimise the usage of by-products and to reduce, reuse and recycle by-products that commonly underutilised in the linear economy,” he said in a statement today.
Moh revealed the three main by-products from the process of extracting oil from fresh fruit bunches (FFB) are palm press fibre (PPF), palm kernel shell (PKS), and empty fruit bunches (EFB).
He said PPF is residue obtained after pressing palm fruits for oil extraction and contains important amounts of residual palm oil, making it a good combustible material and is predominantly used as fuel for palm oil mills, where it is burned to produce steam for generating electricity which saves large amounts of diesel fuel and is a convenient method of disposal.
“PKS is the shell fractions left after the nuts have been extracted from crushing operations and has long been used as a solid fuel in palm oil mill steam boilers for electricity,” he said.
As for EFB, Moh said it is one of the most significant by-products in terms of quantity (every metric tonne (mt) of FFB produces approximately 0.22 mt of EFB) which is discarded directly in the field for mulching purposes and has created enormous challenges to millers to find a cost effective disposal methods.
He also said the transformation of EFB, through burning or composting processes into organic fertiliser has been found to be the most suitable way to reduce this raw material before returning it to fields.
He pointed out that fertiliser accounts for approximately 30 per cent to 35 per cent of total cost of production for oil palm producers.
The price of nitrogen and phosphorus fertilisers for oil palm, have increased more than 100 per cent over the last six months driven by supply disruptions, strong demand and higher input costs.
“The total planted area with oil palm in Sarawak has reached 1.61 million hectares in 2021. The amount of fertiliser requires per ha is ranging from 1.3 metric tonnes to 1.7 metric tonnes per annum.
“If there is an opportunity to substitute 5 per cent to 15 per cent of the existing dosage of fertiliser with local palm-based organic fertilisers derived from EFB, there will be a significant savings in terms of cash outflow as well as minimized environmental issues cause by EFB heap,” he said. — DayakDaily
