Money does grow on trees- A visit to Carey Island

I had a rare opportunity to visit Carey Island last Tuesday, which is a short distance away from Teluk Panglima Garang. Carey Island is about 80 km from KL and is actually a restricted area. It is owned by Sime Darby and if I am not mistaken the natives of the island, the Orang Asli (I was told that there is an Orang Asli settlement in Carey Island). Carey island is 1/5 the size of Singapore and 1/2 the size of Penang Island. The visit was necessary as we needed to understand more about palm oil and the extraction of tocotrienol (vitamin E family) from the fruit.

The island is named after the founder, a British named Mr. Edward Valentine Carey. Many crops had been introduced to Carey Island since then, namely coffee, tea, tea tree, basically commodity plants, till the introduction of the oil palms from West Africa, which later transformed the whole island (well about 80%) into an oil palm plantation.

Mr. Carey also built more than 10 colonial houses (still standing) in the island which are currently maintained by the staff of Sime Darby. We visited one of those houses called the 'Hatter's Castle'. The person-in-charge told us that the reason it is called 'Hatter' is because the house was originally built with a hat-shaped roof till they renovated it sometime back. The rooms in 'Hatter's Castle' are huge with secret passage ways that double up as a closet......hehehh i guess that's where they hid the mistresses back in those days......

Since the island is rather far from civilization, the management has built a small but sustainable community facilities and religious houses such as a temple, a small church and a mosque. There's also a small petrol kiosk, hospital or rather clinic and a school for people living in the island.

The plantation manager took us on a walkabout and demonstrated the different stages of the palm fruits. The 'male' and 'female' part of the plant that eventually meet via wind and insect pollination will form bunches of fruits (unriped being the dark-coloured fruits to the ripe ones being bright red). It is also interesting to note that 70% of the entire plantation is made up of 'female' trees and the rest 'male' trees.

"When is the best time to harvest the fruit? and how can one tell whether the fruits are ripe?" one of my curious colleagues enquired.

"Oh, simple, just look at the ground......if you see loose fruits on the ground (1-2 loose fruits), that means that the particular bunch of fruits are ready for harvest" replied the plantation manager. "And after the worker has harvested the bunch, he needs to carve his staff ID onto it, so we could trace back if the fruits were harvested too early, just nice or waited too long until they are over-riped. Then there goes the KPIs. The supervisor will also be held responsible if any bunches of fruits were left out and turned rotten".


What fascinated us was the fact that the management does not use any chemicals to rid the plantation of pests and insects. Instead, they planted many types of shrubs that are beneficial to the survival of certain insects and these insects, in turn, are the ones that keep the the population of pests such as bagworms and catterpillars in check (biological population control). This is because, the pests devour the fronds and this may affect the yield of the fruits by up to 30%.

Not only that, the number one pest in any oil palm plantations is the mouse/rat and this, the management has cleverly welcome the barn owls by building small houses for the owls to live and rest during the day (99% of the diet of the barn owls are rodents). These methods are effective in keeping pests at bay, ensuring high quality yield and does not damage the environment. How clever is that!


We also visited a mill and was given a short briefing on the extraction of crude palm oil (CPO) from the yellow-orange flesh (mesocarp) of the fruit. All parts of the fruit are used; to produce cooking oils, supplements in the form of vit E (beneficial for the skin, heart and certain types of cancer), in food ingredients and as biodiesel. The endocarp (the white centre) can be used to make soaps and cosmetics and the kernel (the black ring surrounding the endocarp) can be used as fuel for machineries.

I guess we Malaysians are truly blessed for having oils from both the ground (petroleum) and trees (oil palm) and we should never take these commodities for granted. We are indeed one of the top two CPO producing countries in the world.....thanks to the British people who brought the trees into Malaysia. They originally had the intention of using the trees as ornamental plants! who would have guessed?



As for me, the oil palm holds much potential in the future. Think about it......oil can finally be grown to run vehicles, machineries and even generate power someday.......Malaysia will stand to gain alot! No wonder Sime Darby is treating these trees like babies......money does grow on trees......literally-speaking....