Women Smallholder Empowerment in Oil Palm
Breaking gender stereotypes in oil palm farming, independent smallholder Mariamah Yunus not only calls all the shots but she’s also empowered to give back to her community.
The 1980s marked the closing chapter of the logging industry in Sabah. Large tracts of lowland forests were converted into agricultural land or left to regenerate. Mariamah Yunus’s parents were one of the first settlers to start oil palm smallholding in the Kinabatangan District.
“In those days, if you cleared and developed vacant land, you could apply for land rights from the Jabatan Tanah (Lands and Surveys Department),” says the second generation oil palm smallholder. Marimah’s parents had moved their young family from Kampung Segaliud in Sandakan to seek greener pastures. Most settlers planted crops like rice and cocoa. Mariamah’s father went out on a limb and chose oil palm.
“He basically jumped into the deep end. With no (oil palm) planting knowledge or experience, he tried and failed the first three times,” recalls Mariamah, a primary school student then. The seedlings didn’t survive or the trees didn’t fruit. Elephants and wild boars from a nearby forest reserve wandered into the farm and wiped out the young trees.
“We even lit fires at night to scare off the wildlife,” Mariamah adds. Fourth time lucky, they finally reaped their first harvest five years later. Her father’s ‘triumph’ convinced the other villagers, who were sceptical at first, to follow suit.
“My father never gave up. He was tenacious!”
Closing the gender gap
Marimah was narrating her family history as we lounged in the outdoor patio of her sizable house in Kampung Batu Puteh, Kinabatangan District. It didn’t take long for us to realise the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
A dynamic female independent smallholder, Mariamah owns her land, manages her farm and makes all the decisions, bucking gender stereotypes in a traditionally male-dominated industry. In the oil palm sector, women are typically seen as farm helpers who assist their husbands or male family members to run their smallholdings. They often lack resources like land, financing, training and market access.
Mariamah’s own farming journey began in the 1990s in Kampung Sentosa Jaya, also in Kinabatangan and 10 km north of Kg Batu Puteh. A two-hour drive south of Sandakan, Sentosa Jaya is a settlement established in 1981. With a population of 422, three quarters of the households here are involved in oil palm, either working for mills or estates, or running their own smallholdings.
Fresh out of high school, Mariamah ran a mom-and-pop store at the banks of the Kinabatangan River. After she got married, she and her husband, a primary school teacher, decided to plant oil palm to improve their livelihoods. Following in her father’s footsteps, she cleared a vacant land and applied for land ownership in 1998.
“In the early years, it was all a communal effort – from land clearing and planting to harvesting, our families and neighbours helped out,” says Mariamah of Bugis descent. By the time they reaped their first harvest, Marimah’s husband was posted to a school in another village. She was left to manage the farm and household alone with three young kids in tow.
“He rarely came home, at most once a month so I had to (and still) hold the fort,” says Marimah, 46. “And being a woman, I feel like I have to go above and beyond to prove myself.”
Seven years after planting the first seeds, she was earning a good-enough income to afford to hire contract workers to do the heavy lifting.
Steep learning curve
In 2018, Wild Asia extension agents arrived at Mariamah’s village to engage farmers to join the Wild Asia Group Scheme (WAGS). WAGS offers free technical advice and capacity building to help independent smallholder farmers meet national and international certification standards and improve their farm management practices.
To date, WAGS has nearly 2,000 members, out of which 49% are female smallholders. Women have equal access to training on good agricultural practices that increase productivity and lower costs, occupational health and safety, environmental stewardship and record-keeping.
Mariamah had chalked up over 10 years of farming experience by then. In 2014, she joined Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB)’s replanting programme and received support in the form of seedlings and fertiliser. However, there are still insufficient training opportunities to guide independent smallholders like her towards sustainable production.
“Before I knew about sustainability certification, my farming approach was a hit–or-miss affair,” she chuckles. “I know there is a lot more to learn (about farming) and I wanted to harness my full potential.”
And learn she did.
Like farmers before her, Mariamah “blanket” (rampant) sprayed herbicide to manage weeds, planted seeds from loose palm fruits or inferior seedlings, and applied chemical fertiliser only when she had spare cash.
“I learned that rampant spraying of herbicide degraded the soil and contaminated the pond (water source) in my farm,” says Marimah. Many of her seedlings either didn’t survive, or the yields were low due poor-quality seedlings and nutrient deficiency.
“I didn’t know the right kind of fertiliser to buy, how to apply them effectively, and how to stack the fronds “correctly” to ensure the organic matter provides nutrients back to the soil,” she adds.
Through WAGS training, Mariamah switched to controlling weeds manually using a grass cutter and improved fertiliser use efficiency. She learned to log details like FFB (fresh fruit bunches) yields, costs of chemical inputs, farm hand wages, sales and profits. WAGS staff also tracks her progress through the logbook.
“Before this, I never kept records of yields and production expenses,” says the mother of five. “Now I can manage my expenses. Whenever FFB prices drop, I know where to cut corners.” Mariamah also received a shelf to store chemicals safely and PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) like safety helmet and gloves, courtesy of MPOB.
In 2019, her farm became MSPO (Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil) – certified. But it’s the tangible shifts that caught her off guard.
Since joining WAGS, her yields have nearly doubled and her production costs have decreased by 40%. When palm oil prices skyrocketed during the Covid-19 pandemic period (2021-2022), many smallholders like Mariamah received a windfall.
“Our oil palm income averaged MYR 12,000 to MYR 15,000 a month at the time,” says Mariamah, smiling. She channelled the profits into building a new house next to her home and rents it out for additional income. Today, her 6.07-ha farm rakes in about MYR 6,000 monthly, with an annual production averaging 100.67 metric tons.
“Most importantly, my soil and trees are healthy in the long haul and my farm is better managed,” says Mariamah. A steady income also allows her to spend more on her children’s education, nutrition and healthcare. Her perpetual challenge is finding contract workers to do the grunt work like harvesting and transporting FFBs. When push comes to shove, like during the pandemic, she relies on relatives and neighbours to do gotong-royong (communal work).
Fostering economic resilience
Not one to rest on her laurels, Mariamah swears by the mantra – “sediakan payung sebelum hujan,” a Malay proverb meaning to prepare for any eventualities. To her, that means having other sources of income to weather the capricious palm oil prices. In her backyard, she plants Napier grass (Pennisetum purpureum), sugarcane and bananas as fodder for livestock and sells them to the nearby Borneo Elephant Sanctuary (BES).
The returns are modest, about MYR 700 a month. But Napier, for example, is easy to grow and manage, and can be harvested weekly, she added. She also grows vegetables, herbs and fruit trees for her family consumption.
“I’m always on the lookout for ways to make extra income and I advise my female allies to do the same,” she quips. Two of her kids are still in school whilst the three older kids are working adults. “My principles – be self-sufficient and independent!”
Although Mariamah is eligible to join Wild Asia’s WAGS BIO programme, which requires a commitment to chemical-free farming, she’s still sitting on the fence.
“I’m not sure I can afford the time and energy just yet,” she admits with a smile.
“Oil palm farming has provided us with a decent livelihood and quality of life…I’m just blessed to be in a position to do my bit to help our community.”
Paying it forward
As a woman who is always on a mission, being economically empowered also means Mariamah can help those in need.
An ardent volunteer, she donates her time and money to organisations like the Muslimah Aali Yusuf, a grassroots social welfare organisation for Muslim women, KRT (Kawasan Rukun Tetangga – Neighbourhood Watch) and KOSPEN, a community-based health intervention programme. Although Mariamah’s farm is in Sentosa Jaya, her family home is in Kampung Batu Puteh, 10 km south of Sentosa Jaya. 43% of Kg Batu Puteh’s population falls under the hardcore poverty (monthly household income below MYR 1,000) category, based on a 2018 study by Sabah Forestry Department. Mariamah helps out in many community programmes designed for socio-economic upliftment.
Thanks to her leadership traits, high-energy and dedication, she has been offered the leadership posts in Muslimah and the JKKK (Village Development and Security Committees). But she turned down the offers because she has “more than enough on my plate!”
“Oil palm farming has provided us with a decent livelihood and quality of life,” says Mariamah who just welcomed her first grandchild in March. “I’m just blessed to be in a position to do my bit to help our community.”
This story is part of a farmer profile series under Malaysian Sustainable Farmer Chronicles, a collaboration between Wild Asia and Malaysian Palm Oil Council to share the innovations and best practices of MSPO – certified smallholder farmers in Malaysia.