SYNOPSIS

Up to 90% of workforce in Malaysian plantations are foreign and is becoming increasingly scarce due to better employment opportunity at their own country. The only way to replace them is to mechanise or automate the field works such as crop harvesting and evacuation before reaching the factory for processing. However, the decision to mechanise always hindered by high capital cost of machines, conventional estate layout, steep terrain, choice of the correct machines, lack of technical expertise to operate and maintain the machines and more obvious, acceptance from all levels of management. These have forced the plantations industry to continue relying on foreign labour for the field works and the company revenue affected when labour shortage happens.

SPEAKER’S BIODATA

Ir. Yong Hong Lianggraduated from Universiti Putra Malaysia with Bachelor of Engineering (Agricultural) in year 1998 and Master Science (Soil & Water Eng.) in year 2000. He has more than 20 years of experience in the infrastructure development of oil palm plantations, rural groundwater extraction and supply, and agricultural machinery implementation & maintenance in Malaysia and Indonesia. He has served several MNC namely PPB Oil Palms Berhad, Leong Hup Berhad, TSH Resources Berhad and Boh Plantations Sdn Bhd. Ir. Yong is a Corporate Member of IEM, and a PEPC with BEM. He is currently the advisor for the Agricultural & Food Engineering Technical Division of the IEM