“Relying on foreign workers for all these critical tasks really puts this industry at very high risk,” Helmy said. “That’s why we have to take this step. We really have to bet.”
It will take years to perfect the robots and deploy them on a commercially viable scale, even when firms pour hundreds of thousands into developing the technology and training staff to make use of it. But manufacturers are pressing.
The plantation workforce in Malaysia – the world’s second-largest producer of palm oil – was hollowed out in the course of the pandemic when border restrictions meant firms couldn’t usher in the foreign staff they relied on. It was the worst labour shortage within the country’s history, and palm oil production plummeted, sending prices to record highs, costing the industry billions.
SD Guthrie learned his lesson. Where possible, the corporate began using machines to take over non-harvest work, corresponding to spraying pesticides or monitoring fruit and crops. While the industry average currently is one worker maintaining 8-10 hectares of land, the corporate wants to extend that number to about 17 hectares per worker using automation.
The company’s investment in robots is ready to succeed in 100 million ringgit ($21.2 million) — about half of its R&D budget — by the tip of the 12 months, and “will spend whatever it takes to find a solution,” in keeping with Helmy. Almost 30 percent of its annual R&D budget can be spent on the initiative over the following three to 4 years.
The robots should not yet fully autonomous, which implies it still requires expert staff to manage and maneuver them. Additionally, tougher tasks are left to humans – like safely cutting ripe bunches of fruit from trees that could be as tall as six-story buildings.
But technological advances have already opened the door for ladies to hitch the traditionally male-dominated workforce. Sri Norhidayu Kussain, 41, says robots are helping with back-breaking tasks like lifting 30-kilogram (66-pound) bunches of fruit and loading them onto trucks.
“Work is easier now because these machines have effectively reduced the need for manual labor. It’s not like it used to be when only men could do this type of work,” said Norhidayu, who operates a pesticide spraying vehicle that may do the work of six staff at SD Guthrie’s Sungai Linau estate in Malaysia’s central state of Selangor.
Women make up 3 percent of the corporate’s roughly 700 machine operators, and Helmy says the corporate is attempting to attract more staff.
Labor shortages have long been a headache for Malaysian businesses, partly due to strict immigration laws targeting low-skilled staff that encourage human trafficking and leave 1000’s of undocumented staff without legal protection. International scrutiny of labor abuses has forced the country to scale back its reliance on several industries, including manufacturing, construction and plantations.
SD Guthrie itself faced forced labor allegations, which led to a two-year U.S. import ban on its products in 2020 — which Helmy said prompted the corporate to explore automation options.
“Automation, if implemented strategically, will not harm workers’ livelihoods,” said Adrian Pereira, executive director of North South Initiative, a Malaysian NGO focused on social justice. “We really hope that government-linked companies will take the initiative and show that this sector can soon be free from forced labor.”
SD Guthrie is the primary plantation company within the country to determine a research center dedicated to developing robots. Other palm giants corresponding to Golden Agri-Resources Ltd. and IOI Corp Bhd. have also invested in mechanization and artificial intelligence to assist harvest the oil utilized in every part from chocolate to soaps and fuel.
A plantation run solely by robots won’t develop into a reality soon. Technical issues, corresponding to enabling robots to independently navigate hilly terrain or accurately identifying ripe fruit bunches, have held back previous automation initiatives. This is in stark contrast to crops like soybeans and canola – waist-high row crops in flat fields – where farmers can till tons of of hectares using tractors and giant harvesting machines.
But speaking amidst whirring, beeping prototypes at the corporate’s robotics lab in Selangor, the corporate’s chief digital officer Aditya Tuli said the changes were everlasting.
“When we start mechanizing, we imagine there will be an increase or a positive impact on the number of productions,” he said. “We are striving for it.”
