27/8/2003 - Recycling oil palm wastes into animal feed can be a viablebusiness and will go a long way towards reducing Malaysia’s imports ofsuch feeds.

THE palm oil industry has often been criticised for being too polluting,but those in the business have responded by coming out with innovativeways to deal with the waste products.

One such waste product was oil palm fronds (OPF) that were disposed of byburning after the oil palm trees were pruned, or during harvesting orafter the trees were cut following a replanting exercise.

That’s a lot of waste considering that there were 3.6million ha of oilpalm plantations in the country last year. Later some far-sightedplantations used these fronds as mulch, but there was a limit to theamount of mulch made.

To solve the problem, the Malaysian Agricultural Research and DevelopmentInstitute (Mardi) entered into a joint project with the JapanInternational Cooperation Agency (JICA) to check out the viability ofmaking feed from oil palm tree fronds. The seven-year project, aimed atdeveloping an effective, practical and viable method for producing animalfeed using the fronds, began in 1997. It has been extended for two years.

Oil palm fronds contain a high amount of fibre which is good for animalsparticularly ruminants like cows, goats and deer. The fibre is a goodsource of energy. The feed made from the oil palm tree fronds cannot begiven to chicken and pigs for instance as they cannot digest the fibre,says Mardi principal research officer Dr Wan Zahari Mohamed.

In addition to the 60% to 70% fibre content, the fronds also have highamounts of protein, vitamin A and vitamin E though the fat content is abit high.

There is a steady supply of fronds from pruning, harvesting andreplanting. The average economic lifespan of an oil palm tree is 25 yearsand on an annual basis, at least 24 fronds are pruned per palm tree. In2000, that worked out to a total of 26.21 tonnes (dry matter) with 17.85tonnes from pruning while the rest came from replanting.

At the plantations they are chopped up either manually or with cutters andsent out to the feed mills.

The mill at Mardi’s headquarters in Serdang, Selangor, gets its supplydirectly from oil palm plantations and the fronds are loaded into modifiedcorn harvesters or forage harvesters that cut the leaves into chipsmeasuring 2cm to 3cm in size. These machines, according to Mardi feed millcoordinator Mohd Yunus Ismail, can cost from RM100,000 to RM300,000 each.

At this point, the chips have about 65% water content and are then driedin a solar dryer (in effect a clear-roofed building with a mechanised rakethat turns over the chips). They are dried for three and a half days atmost during which the moisture content is reduced to 15%.

The second option is to sun dry for two days which reduces moisturecontent to 35% and then another round of drying in the secondary dryer(hot air blower or steam dryer) to achieve the final moisture contentlevel of 10% to 12%.

Subsequently they are fed into a machine that grinds them into a fibrymixture. What happens next depends on the type of feed to be produced.

Wan Zahari says some consumers want 100% pure fibre, while some want 30%fibre and the addition of other nutrients like minerals and vitamins. Witha good formulation, he says, OPF feed can produce a weight gain of 700g aday depending on the cattle breed.

If consumers want a mixture, the ground fronds will go into a mixer andthe next step again depends on what is required. If the feed is for largerruminants, then the cut-up fronds go to the cubing machine to makecube-shaped feed. Otherwise it’s the pelletiser to make pellets. Thecubing machine is the only one in Malaysia and Mardi started operating itlate last year.

The pellets or cubes are then cooled (in a cooling compartment) andtransported to the packing area laced in 25kg bags. Monthly production isabout 100tonnes .

The cost of the set-up is at least RM8mil with the building itself costingabout RM2.5mil.

Wan Zahari says the feed is consumed locally and exported to countrieslike Japan, South Korea and the Middle East. For instance, there is demandfrom South Korea and Japan amounting to 100,000 tonnes per year. In 2000,a total of 7.5 million tonnes of animal feed was consumed by the Malaysianlivestock industry.

The Malaysian import bill for animal feed is still high, says Wan Zahari.

Increasing production would reduce our dependence on imports.

Currently a 100% OPF formulation costs RM305 to RM320 per tonne while the30% formulation feedlot is RM400 to RM420 per tonne (for cows bred formeat), RM520 to RM550 per tonne (for goats or sheep) and RM600 to RM650per tonne for dairy cattle.

For enquiries call 03-89437324 or fax: 03-89485053.