Mahbob Abdullah

Pix for representational purpose only - FREEPIK

Dealing with a change of occupation

PERHAPS one of the highlights of my career was when I was made a chief in a small village in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in 1986.

After that, a series of events brought me back down ...

Memory of acquaintance from Ghana

DURING my visit in 1985, I had met the management staff at the plantation in Ghana. The one I remember most was Al Doku.

He was the chief accountant, about 45 years old, working for the managing director, ...

A worker loading palm oil fruit bunches at an oil palm plantation. – REUTERSPIX

The budget and the palm tree

I had read the articles in the press to say that plantations seem to benefit very little from the recent budget. One could go on talking about it but it is better to think of the wonder crop and how much ...

Ghana has gold and the area was once called the Gold Coast. – REUTERSPIC

Ghana and the ‘spirit‘ of the estate

IN 1985, I was not looking forward to visiting Ghana, where Unilever had a plantation called Benso Oil Palm Plantations.

It was because the managing director was Bill Morrison, who used to work with me ...

One company is working hard to get a constant supply of water to the palms. It pumps water from a stream up the slopes and lets it run down the rows of palms. The pumps use solar power.

Need to raise palm oil yields

MANY have read the coverage of palm oil in the business press recently, and I want to deal with one aspect of it here, a point I have valued highly.

It is about the need to increase the yield of palm oil ...

The owners of land that have been more or less idle have done much better with the oil palm that they have planted.

Ups and downs of palm oil prices

RECENTLY, I was delighted to see a Bloomberg report on palm oil prices, now getting a premium to soya oil.

For many years palm oil could only sell at a discount. I could work out how much the plantations ...

Missing oil palms of Nigeria

WHEN chief Victor Nana, head of Pamol Nigeria, visited the Pamol plantation in Johor in 1978, he could see how well the palms were doing.

He was silent for a while, but I guessed he was thinking of the ...

Production of palm oil and kernel produced in the country were set low enough to please the officials, but the costs of production were high. – REUTERSPIC

The changes in Cameroon

DEREK LUCKING was no longer the managing director in Pamol Cameroon as he had retired.

He and Maria Lucking had lived on the plantation for decades.

Rising from field assistant to managing director, he did ...

Preparing For Cameroon

N January, 1985, I was back in the London office from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and I had given my view on John Dodd’s request to terminate Colin Bewick.

It was a simple matter, and I said ...

The crates of tea harvested by the workers were sent by road to the Mombasa tea auction. – REUTERSPIX

Conversation on tea estate in the Congo

I GOT to hear more about Colin Bewick from John Dodd when we were at Mweso. It was at the last part of my visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, at the end of 1984 and beginning of 1985, and I ...

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