KUALA LUMPUR: Sabah’s average fresh fruit bunch (FFB) yield per month in the first quarter of 2020 (Q1 2020) amounted to 1.17 tonnes per hectare (ha) per month compared with 1.6 tonnes per ha per month in Q1 2019, a decrease of 26.9 percent, according to the Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MPIC).

The state’s average crude palm oil (CPO) production per month fell by 29.1 percent to 319,836 tonnes per month from 450,823 tonnes per month in Q1 2019.

Deputy Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister II, Datuk Seri Dr Wee Jeck Seng said the decline in FFB and CPO production in Q1 2020 was difficult to link to the implementation of the Movement Control Order (MCO), as the slide had started from October 2019 until March 2020 due to factors such as floods in most areas in Malaysia as a result of the northeast monsoon season.

“Apart from that, the fall was also due to the downward trend that usually occurs from November to March of the following year,“ he said in the Dewan Rakyat here, today.

He was replying to a question from Yamani Hafez Musa (Bersatu-Sipitang) on the extent to which farmers and oil palm manufacturers were affected, especially in Sabah, due to the curbs or restrictions in operations during the MCO period earlier this year.

Meanwhile, Wee said Sabah’s average FFB production per month in Q2 2020 (April to June) and Q3 (July to September) had increased to 1.54 tonnes per ha per month and 1.5 tonnes per ha per month respectively, up 11.6 percent and 7.4 percent from Q2 and Q3 2019 respectively.

Sabah also recorded higher CPO production in Q2 and Q3 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.

In Q2 2020, its average monthly CPO production stood at 433,380 tonnes, an increase of nine percent compared with 397,594 tonnes per month in the same period in 2019.

In Q3 2020, the state’s average monthly CPO production was 411,418 tonnes or 1.3 percent higher compared with 406,171 tonnes produced during the same period in 2019. — Bernama

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