Industrial Training Report (FPA310) : Golden Agro Plantation (Mukah) Berhad / Amiril Aizat Muhd Asrul Shamri

The plantation land owned by Golden Agro Plantation (Mukah) Berhad is held under Lot No.3, Block/Section No.2, Baoh Land District, Mukan Division, Sarawak (GPS Coordinates), and measures approximately 5,098 hectares (or 12,587 acres). The land is surrounded by several mature oil palm plantations that are owned and managed by subsidiaries of large, listed corporations including Tradewinds Plantation Berhad and WTK Group. We had a very unique opportunity when we were first presented with the parcel of land as it was completely undeveloped at the time -- thereby granting us the opportunity to design the entire estate from scratch. Under the leadership and guidance from Dato’ Allan, as well as the operational experience and know-how by the management team, our estate was soon mapped out in its entirety. The plantation is designed to allow for maximum efficiency when our operations took place. For example, our field roads and planting rows are shorter than usual in order to ensure that all fruits are harvested easily. The harvesters’ paths designed to be slightly wider than industry norms to allow for mechanization in the future. As the layout of the estate cannot be easily changed once development has started, it was imperative that the initial design of the plantation was done properly. The actual clearing of the land began on August 2011. Development progress was rapid and after a period of just 3 months, not only had we established our first nursery, but also our site office that we are still using today in the Northern Triangle portion of our estate. We were ordering seeds in batches of 25,000 from certified suppliers such as the Sime Darby, IOI and KLK Groups that were being delivered weekly to our nursery. After spending 12 months in the nursery, the young palms were then planted into the field. Our commemorative first field planting took place on 8/8/2012 and was personally planted by Dato’ Allan himself. By December 2013, the entire Northern region of the estate was fully planted. As of today, development and planting progress in the Southern region of the estate is still ongoing at a rapid pace.