Reflection on Oil Palm...

I’ve always heard that Malaysia is the second largest producer and exporter of oil palm in the world, after Indonesia. After visiting the oil (palm) processing factory in Malaysia, I finally understood the sentence......

On the way to the factory, the coach bringing us around Malaysia zipped passed many thousand hectares of land of oil palm plantation. I was amazed by the vast oil palm plantation and how neatly it was planted as I observed it through the coach’s window. It is impossible to see such scenery in Singapore.

As the coach inched closer to the factory, the chemical smell became so strong that even on the bus; we could not stand the excruciating smell seeping into the coach (even deodorant did not help). The tour guide explained that the pungent smell was the chemical, used for processing the palm oil by chemical extraction, using solvent extracts, which produces higher yields and is quicker and less expensive.

After passing by the somewhat endless oil palm plantation, we finally reached our destination: the factory. As soon as the coach’s door opens, the chemical smell flooded the entire bus. Having no other choice, we alighted the coach, and naturally the odour became stronger. At first, all of us could not stand the odour and we literally almost fainted. But slowly, we got used to it. However, besides that, the ground was really muddy, dirty, and naturally oily. Our shoes were dirty and smelly after walking! We could also see dark-coloured smoke coming out of the factories and we thought that factories are serious air polluters!

We gathered together while one of the staff of the factory explained the extraction process, the uses of palm oil, and more about the fruit/seed. He also passed around seeds for us to take a closer look, but most of us dare not touch them as we thought that they were oily. We were quite shocked when we found out that the palm oil is used for COOKING OIL and COSMETICS.
After that, we proceeded to the plantation to see how they tell between the ripe and unripe fruits, and how they harvest them. Fresh fruit bunch in tall palm is harvested by using pahat.
I personally think that I have gained a lot more knowledge about Oil Palm after visiting the processing factory.

Plantation:

Factory: