Before palm oil, there was coconut oil...

By Wong Yee Tuan

February 2011 FEATURE
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A coconut estate in Penang in the 1890s.
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Foreign markets and imported technology fuelled the copra and coconut oil industry in Penang, making it the third biggest money earner for decades. What this tells us at a time when we need to diversify Penang’s economy is that agribusiness has a future.WHEN PENANG WAS occupied by the British, it was intended not only to serve as a trading port but also as land for the cultivation of commercial crops such as peppers, nutmegs, cloves, sugarcanes and coconuts. Of these,...

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Wong Yee Tuan

is Fellow and Head of Penang Institute’s History and Heritage Programme. He hails from Malim Nawar and has profound research interest in the history of Penang.


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