The Money Chase & Mish Mash of Other Stories

Oni wat bilang sidoh otto pikir otto nai ni langkah ke jowin, sibonar eh otto duoh langkah makin ke punuok?

Due to my department's budget prep, I wasn't able to post anything this past couple of weeks. A lot of things have happened in that time, for instance:

•  The SPDP 5 Smackdown!

• Ferdinand Fumbles Again With Liverpool

Ahahaha, so I might write about those things some time soon, but right now; I'd like to focus on something more related to the general well being of Bidayuh and even Dayak equities in Sarawak. If you flip through the newspapers once in a while, you'll notice how much our reps and politicians urges us Dayaks over and over and over again to reap our wealth from the earth. This has been going on for ages, it was like - first they ask us to plant rubber, and then plant cocoa, and then pepper, and then rubber again, and then pepper again, and then oil palm, and then jathropa curcas got a short promotional stint as well, and then paddy and then I think vanilla had some sort of short promotional stint as a 'golden crop' but finally it was back to oil palm (and maybe rubber again!).


Our senior Deputy Chief Minister (hahahaha, try and guess which one I mean) every once in a while pops an article in the newspaper telling people to plant something just for the trend of it. I kesian him for having to do all that promo stint, and don't get any direct marketing contracts from it. Hahaha!

The most jokable plant to have a say in this has got to be Jathropa 'Carcass'! One minute they said it's got great potential and the next minute they're telling people don't even dream of planting it. The best part about this drama is that they were fast to mention that they never said anything about asking people to 'plant' it in the first place. Yeah! Yeah! You neever really TOLD anyone to plant it, but you gave the damn plant enough publicity to LURE people into PERCIEVING that the planting it was economically viable. I swear during that time, newspapers were running articles on jathropa this lah, jathropa that lah, untung lah, jimat kos lah....awww man, even the newspapers were in it.

Yes, of course you didn't TELL people to plant it, but you created a chain reaction of information flooding which brought people to believe that it was 'okay' for them to plant them. SO? Can we accuse people for being dumfounded to litereally believe what they hear or read? Maybe..but we can't blame them for being enterprising, right? They thought they saw an opportunity for a brighter future, so they took the risk. But who's been fuelling the wrong propaganda, then? Haaa...that question is better left unanswered, right? Wait, we don't have ISA anymore right? So should I point fingers outright these days and no more berselinding di sebalik kata-kata hikmah lah? Hahahahaha, NOT!

Now I don't intend to delve in this story much deeper coz I don't think it serves any good. But it does have a serious connection with what I am actually trying to share. You see, Dayaks these days are VERY enterprising. A decent majority can be categorized to be as business conscious as Foochows. But, the problem is each time we think we take a good one foot forward, we're suddenly being pushed two steps back by other circumstances. Don't get what I mean? Here's an example:

You are a Dayak named Jujai living ina kampung in Bau about 15 years ago. You have a piece of land the size of about 20 acres but you live in a kampung where you work only as a contract worker. Ada kerja, kerjalah, tak ada kerja..tak adalah..odi minuok sijak lah. So this land has fruit trees in it, like durians and rambutans. You don't make much money out of it unless its fruit season. So one day, an opportunity comes knocking at your door. It's a big time Tauke and he says, "Jujai, wa mau bili lu punya tanah aaa...berapa lu mau jual? Wa beli. Berapa? Berapa?"

So you thought to yourself, "Wow...that's instant money man. Let me see, I really wanna build a brand new home." So you ask for a about  RM 30, 000.00 lump sum. Viola!!! Tauke gives you that money! And you just lost your land. Okay, so after that Tauke opens a small kebun sawit in his new 20 acre land.

Then Tauke says, "Jujai, u ada kilija ka? Kalau lu takda kilija..lu kilija sama wa...jaga sawit wa." And you agreed, waa..got money and got job lah...stable income oledi maaaa...untung ooo, mana mau cari.

So years down the line, your livelihood is better, your kids are all studying, your eldest graduated and works as a teacher, your second is also in the university. However, you still work in Tauke's kebun but you know Tauke has collectively earned millions from that single kebun for the last 15 years. then you said to yourself, "Oku tong ya puruoh geh sawit ai...bogok untung!". 

So you go off and plant oil palm trees bit by bit in around the compound of your house. Coz dats the only piece of land you have left. But you are not really poor now, you did saved up some money after working for 15 years and so you decide to buy your younger brother's land which is about 10 acres. It's a bit smaller than your old land but hey, you struck a good deal to buy for about RM 30,000.00 and in the present, it's actually a bargain considering the inflated price of land nowadays. So there you go making your own kebun. Then Tauke sees your initiative and says, "Waaaa Jujai! Manyak bagut lu ooo, sudah tanam sawit sendili, mana lu mau jual ah?"

Then you thought? Hell yeah, I only have a small kebun only, leceh lah buat permit this and lesen that...where is the easiest place to sell? Now Tauke says, "Lu jual sama wa la, wa sudah buka ramp sana, tak payah lu susah susah bikin itu bikin ini maa." So of course you'd sell your fruit bunches to him due to convenience. Nonetheless, from your hard work and effort, you have gone from having nothing to become financially stable. A very positive progress right?

Now let's look at theis story AGAIN, but this time instead of percieving yourself as Jujai, try putting yourself in Tauke's shoes. As Jujai inches his way to earn his hard earned money, Tauke is doing the same thing i.e. making money, but always in a more larger sum and always in front of Jujai. Both men are working, both men are enterprising, but the difference is one has better FORESIGHT than the other. So why do we have less foresight than other people? I think it's because we lack critical thinking and we rarely dare to take any risks. Dayaks and most Bumiputeras prefer to be on the safe side of things.

So as a responsible Bidayuh, here is a proposal that I would like to share with my fellow peeps. Before I even say it, I'd like to clarify a few things:

• This is purely an idea that is yet to be applied anywhere in Sarawak
• The effects of RISK TAKING in these ideas are usually minimal but it doesn't mean that they are not without actual real life constraints.

There's only a handful of palm oil mills in Sarawak, but there are millions of hectares of oil palms planted. In the next couple of years, we will see a jump in the production of oil palm. Even in its current state, smallholders are queuing up at the mill to sell their fresh fruit bunches. So, I would think that any Dayak would jump at the opportunity to plant oil palm due to the demand and of course if you do plant it now, it is still profitable. But profit has its limits here simply because we have a limited supply of land per individual.

So a few Dayak entrepreneurs do take the business initiative of buying more land to plant oil palm. But now, since EVERYONE WANTS TO PLANT THEIR OWN, who's selling? Coz everyone wants to buy!

My challenge to our fellow Dayaks is actually instead of planting, can't Dayaks just venture into milling? SO WHAT if it costs RM 30,000,000.00? Ten years of operation is still gonna earn you millions more!! It uses a much smaller plot of land to build up, and all you have to do is to wait at the gate and order smallholder to queue properly as thousands of tonnes of fruit bunches gets sent to you everyday. All the actual HARD work is done by machines. Now, isn't that better prospect and FORESIGHT?

The pessismist is always the first to say, "Aiyaaa, susah la...apply itu ini, pergi buat environmental impact assesment la, settle financial facilities la, approval from MPOB la, inspection la, health and safety certification la...leceh lah". All I can say is, yes..you have to go through all that..you have to go to all those ridiculous paperwork and meetings many other things TO EARN MILLIONS! That's the WORK! But it's mostly paperwork. So you think doing holing for manual planting of oil palm seedlings are easier? Evaluate it for yourself.

The thing is, a lot of things are always viewed in a uniformed paradigm and people rarely want to make observations from a different vantage point. Who says mills have to be big like the ones we see today? There are developers and cunsultants who design small capacity mills, like those paddy mills in the kampungs. Even if a mini mill production takes you a week to fill up one tanker of crude palm oil, one tanker is already earning you hundreds of thousands of ringgit man and costs you a fraction of that.


Who on Earth is gonna give you RM 100,000.00  a week?! Unless you're Steven Gerrard or Wayne Rooney or Frank Lampard lah (I'm not putting any Arsenal players here since Cesc Fabregas already left the club hahaha). You'd still be a millionaire by years end dammit. Sometimes, doing something BIG doesn't always mean having to do things in larger proportions, what needs to be BIG is the IDEA, the PASSION and the EFFORT. Not the money.





Mini Palm Oil Mill, it can fit in your backyard!

 So? What are you guys waiting for? Think BIG!