| Abstract: | While agribusiness is normally associated with western multinational companies, Malaysia provides an alternative example of a Third World agribusiness, the Federal Land Development Authority (FELDA). FELDA has evolved through an advisory stage and then a major land settlement agency phase, assisting Malaysia's rural poor, to its present position as a major employer of immigrant agricultural labour and as a large commercial business in palm oil exporting. This recent agribusiness approach is best exemplified by FELDA's Sahabat complex of 54 schemes in Eastern Sabah. There, mono‐cultural oil palm cropping has been successfully developed while earlier environmental concerns have been largely ignored. Plans for Sahabat have been modified to accommodate immigrant labourers from Indonesia and the Philippines rather than local settlers from Malaysia. A modernised plantation approach has taken over from the initial contract farming and social engineering approach. |
