The strong woman of Sekaloh in Niah

ON the last stop of our recent visits to smallholder plantations up in northern Sarawak, we met Margaret Batang, a resident of Rumah Libau in the Sekaloh settlement near the iconic Niah Caves.

We first met Margaret, also known as Indai Patrick, in 2018 where we were treated to a hearty meal in her ‘bilik’ (household quarters in the longhouse).

Indeed, it was a sumptuous spread, which was prepared by Margaret using ingredients sourced from her own vegetable patch as well as from the jungle.

As we helped ourselves to the delicious food, Margaret began recounting the history of the settlement.

Brooke-era agro-settlement project

According to her, Sekaloh started off as an agricultural settlement back in the 1920s, when the Brooke administration at the time was encouraging the Ibans to migrate into the area.

“The Brooke government wanted the Ibans to grow paddy in order to supply food to those in surrounding areas. They had godowns (warehouses) for the harvests, and even had an officer called the ‘Food Controller’ to ensure that the rice would be sold and distributed to the areas in need,” Margaret told thesundaypost.

Margaret’s family, however, came to Sekaloh in the 1950s.

At the time, the then-colonial government was still opening up agriculture settlements, but the focus had somewhat shifted away from paddy and turned onto rubber trees, deemed as being more profitable then.

Hailing from Batang Undup in the then-Simanggang District (now Sri Aman) in the state’s south, Margaret’s parents joined other young couples in making the long journey to Niah before settling down in Sekaloh.

“At the time, there were stories about people seeing dragons and ghosts around the Niah Caves, but the Batang Undup folks were not afraid.

“They simply forged ahead with settling down in the area, with the first longhouse facing the Niah Caves.

“Later, the community became bigger and the longhouse was split into many small farming huts, just like a Malay ‘kampong’ (village).

“However, much later in the 2000s, we ‘regrouped’ into three main longhouses,” said Margaret during the 2018 interview.

‘From paddy to rubber, to oil palm’

Reminiscing her younger days, Margaret, who was born in 1962, said Sekaloh had gone through several rounds of drastic transformation and the resettlers had no choice but to adapt to undertaking one cash crop after another, due to changes in the geographical landscape and commodity prices.

The young Margaret helped tend to her family’s paddy estates and at the same time, caring for her six siblings.

In her 20s, she became a young mother – a role that she had to juggle with rubber-tapping to help provide for the household.

Upon entering her 40s and caring for four adolescent children, she was harvesting oil palm fresh fruit bunches (FFBs).

When we met Margaret in 2018, she was in her mid-50s but still active in tending to 600 oil palms at the estate, together with her sister and nephew.

They were doing all the weeding, fertilising and harvesting activities themselves.

At that time, it was an empty nest with only her and her retired husband at home.

Even today, managing an oil palm plantation is still described as ‘a dirty, dangerous and difficult job’, but for the people of Sekaloh who have been farmers for generations, it is work for everyone regardless of gender or age, as long as they are in good health.

Margaret proudly said that when she first harvested oil palm fruits, she could easily carry up to 60kg of FFBs all by herself, but with old age beginning to creep up on her, she could only manage less than 30kg.

“My husband, Khoo Sing Chui, used to work at the Niah Water Board plant. He helped me carry the FFBs when he was younger, but now we’re entering old age, it has become more difficult to get the work done.

“My sister and I can only hope that we’d remain healthy to continue working.

Nonetheless, Margaret said she was thankful at least that all of their children have grown up well and managed to be self-sufficient with their own respective families.

Diversifying into other cash crops

Like many smallholder planters, Margaret and her family struggled with maintaining profits due to high transport and fertiliser costs, but the situation was especially hard for them during the time of our initial interview when palm oil prices were at a decade low.

Nonetheless, the Sekaloh folks found a way in mitigating the situation – they diversified.

Drawing from their experience when natural rubber prices began reaching unsustainable levels in the 1990s and 2000s, Margaret and her Sekaloh community turned to planting other cash crops like pineapple, tapioca, bamboo shoots, wild ginger and other local vegetables to supplement their incomes.

Renewed optimism in palm oil

We caught up with Margaret again last December, and even after five years had passed since the first interview, she looked not a day older than when we first met.

Since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, surging palm oil prices had drastically improved the earnings of all smallholders.

Margaret said although prices had begun normalising in 2023, it was still better than when we last met her in 2018.

The recent rise in palm oil prices seemed to have stirred up renewed optimism as Margaret told us that she and her husband were planning to build a separate house on a lot next to Rumah Libau, for their sons in the future.

“It is still not completed yet, but my two sons will continue on with our palm oil plantation with my sister and her family.

“We will all work together in a communal way, and the profits will be shared accordingly.”

Expressing similar renewed confidence in palm oil, Dayak Oil Palm Planters Association (Doppa) president Napolean R Ningkos believed that smallholders like Margaret and her family could look forward to better days in 2024, with more certainty in better FFB and palm oil prices.

“There have been many challenges faced in 2023, and we trust that Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil Certification Scheme (MSPO)’s acceptance by Japan, China and India, these would continue to stabilise the prices in 2024,” he said.

For 2024, the market consensus is that palm oil prices would trend higher than 2023, ending up to sit at an annual average US$1,020 per metric tonne.

The higher prices are expected to be mainly driven by increased global biofuel demand, especially with Indonesia having raised its biodiesel mandate from a 30 per cent blended rate to a new 35 per cent blended rate (B35).

* This is the final article of a three-part series on two Iban settlements in the rural pockets of Northern Sarawak