COVID-19 and the Palm Oil Industry: Navigating recovery

This article unfolds the current state of the palm oil industry following the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the industry being allowed to operate given strict standard operating procedures, palm oil production has depicted a declining trend since 2018. One of the contributing factors is foreign worker shortages for maintenance and palm oil harvesting. Therefore, this article proposes the mechanization and mobilization of local workers, as well as the challenges and the way forward for Malaysia. Keywords: 2M-mobilization and mechanization; palm oil plantation; challenges; way forward eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2023. The Authors. Published for AMER and cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under the responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), College of Built Environment, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v8iSI15.507