AFTER my leave was over, I arrived at my apartment in Kota Kinabalu to be greeted at the door by a pretty girl with fair skin and long glossy hair. Her lips were slightly wet.
“Who are you?”
“I am your servant Misah.”
“What happened?”
She had a severe harelip before I left for a few weeks to enjoy the fasting month and Hari Raya at home in Kuala Lumpur.
She explained that a hospital ship had arrived from Australia and the doctors did surgery on those with harelips. The news spread in Sabah, and it was true that they did the procedure for free. In her case, it was a splendid job, making her look beautiful, and all she had to do now was to put an ointment on her lips for a few more days.
Without the deformity, her speech was normal. My wife Maznah found out about it when she called to ask if I had arrived. A few minutes later, she called again, this time to speak with me.
“I am arriving on the late-night flight.”
Maznah saw that Misah was indeed beautiful and observed that she continued to
do her work with the same high standards. The only difference now was that she did not need the driver to send her home each day as she could take the bus. Previously her harelip condition had frightened the other passengers, but now she enjoyed the ride as she caught people stealing glances at her.
She also told Maznah that she now went out in the evenings with friends and attended weddings, mingling with people – something she had not been able to do in the past.
Maznah stayed on a few more days while I visited the estates, where a less pleasant surprise was happening.
The boom time for cocoa was over. During the early 1980s, prices had been high, and timber tycoons developed more land. Many others who saw the bonanza also planted cocoa, borrowing money from banks to do so.
Sabah had young entrepreneurs who had theories on how to raise the yield. It was by changing the planting density per hectare, spacing them in avenues to allow for free air flow so flowers could form into pods, and even varying the number of Glyricidia trees that gave shade to the cocoa trees.
One big owner claimed he had a high crop even without the shade. Arguments like these could go on into the night at the Marco Polo Hotel in Tawau, a popular stop for planters.
One planter, who lived on a remote estate, said he had increased fruiting by playing his violin among the cocoa trees in the middle of the night.
One night, a planter friend, Anthony Tsen, took me to his cocoa plantation to show me his theory. He shone a torchlight and showed me a tree with over 200 pods, hanging like presents on a Christmas tree. He rushed from plant to plant to show me more.
“It is all about the fertiliser you choose,” he said. “The trees need phosphate of the right quality, and when the timing is right, you apply potassium. That is how more flowers can grow into pods.”
“What else?”
“You must plant with the seeds bought from certified producers. Otherwise, you may not get any crop at all.”
However, soon the prices dropped. Over the months, the prices dropped further, following the world trend.
Many small owners faced tight cashflows, and banks were calling in their loans. Cocoa was losing its allure. Even big companies were questioning the future of the crop.
The final answer came with another surprise.
The cocoa pod borer arrived and spread rapidly, feeding on the cocoa pod and its contents. Instead of being loose and fat, the beans were deformed and fused together. Prices dropped again. The large plantations were the first to make a decision.
“We will go back to oil palm.”
It was of course the right thing to do. The cocoa pod borer spelled the end of the cocoa boom. But another insect imported some years earlier from Africa had helped with another crop. The Elaeidobius kamerunicus weevils solved the pollination problem for oil palm, which then spread rapidly in the state.
It was a good time to talk to the owners who could not hang on to their land, as the big companies were on a wave of buying up the land. They then uprooted the cocoa plants and planted oil palms.
I joined in, for Sime Darby was looking for such land. I visited many estates. Some were easy to dismiss as being too hilly while others were priced too high. I failed to match them every time. Usually, the owners would say: “I have spent this much and I still owe the bank this much. This is the price I need.”
In one case, I visited an estate with soil so thick that it looked like chocolate cake. I had not seen such rich dark soil anywhere else. A clear stream flowed through it.
I had the approval to do the deal. I was climbing the steps to the owners’ office in Tawau town as a rival was walking down. The owner scratched his head as he explained: “I have just sold it to the man who was going down the stairs a minute ago. He came in with a high figure.”
In the meantime, Ken Eales, the head of plantations, said the two plantations owned by Sime Darby – Segaliud and Mengaris estates – would be replanted. The bulldozers came to push the cocoa trees, replaced by oil palm seedlings.
I went on with my work but I had little to show in terms of expansion except for buying a small estate not far from Mengaris.
My success came later, and it was only after I had left Sabah.
The writer has extensive experience in the management of oil palm plantations. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
