Malaysia faces hit from palm oil staff shortage

Bloomberg

The coronavirus pandemic has left Malaysia’s palm oil industry without enough workers, a shortage that could cost farmers as much as 25% of their annual production — a loss worth about $2.8 billion.
Malaysia’s economy relies on palm oil, its most important agricultural commodity, but palm oil needs migrant
workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh and India to do jobs locals won’t.
As countries in Southeast Asia struggle to get the Covid-19 outbreak under control, governments have tightened restrictions on travel for workers both coming and going.
“In the past, when people left, people also came,” said Nageeb Wahab, chief executive at the Malaysian Palm Oil Association, a growers’ group that represents 40% of palm plantations by area. “Now, the coming is nil, and the leaving may be more after Malaysia’s movement control order.”
Though environmental activists have pushed to rein in the palm industry for years, the labour shortage there signals the disruption unfolding at companies and farms around the world that depend on migrant workers.
More than 70% of the country’s plantation workers come from outside Malaysia’s borders, according to an estimate by Rabobank; the country
produces about 26% of the world’s most common cooking oil.
Production was already expected to drop by as much as 10% due to last year’s dry weather and less aggressive fertilisation.
Now the labour shortage suggests the shortfall could more than double, Nageeb said, and growers are beginning to fidget.