A tractor job witha difference
A tractor job witha difference
Ever wondered what those adverts in the back of FW for agricultural jobs in
far-away places involve? Tony Bevington, who found himself teaching tractor
driving on an oil-palm plantation in Papua New Guinea, provides an answer
IT was November 21 1997. My farmers weekly arrived as usual and I sat down to peruse it. We all have our preferred style of doing this; mine is to read the vacancies section first and then the properties for sale. But that day I never reached the latter.
For there in the vacancies section was an advert headed Tractor Driver Instructor. I am an agricultural trainer as well as a qualified driving instructor, so it looked interesting. An even greater draw was the fact that it was in Papua New Guinea.
The job was with an oil palm company, which was undertaking a mechanisation programme that involved teaching new tractor drivers and upgrading its existing ones. An "excellent" salary, house, car, gas and electricity were all provided.
It sounded right up my street and I had my CV in the post 10 minutes later. Then the anxious wait began, for mail takes a fortnight to get to Papua New Guinea and then another fortnight to get back to the UK again.
In the event I got the job and was soon on a 28-hour flight to New Britain, one of the islands that make up Papua New Guinea. Oil palm production is labour-intensive and hard work in this hot and humid place. Annual rainfall is nearly 11m (36ft) and average temperatures 25íC (77íF). Snakes and mosquitoes abound.
The farm consisted of 20,000ha (50,000 acres) of palms, stretching into the distance in straight lines with stony roads interspersing. I was told that the acreage was due to double shortly.
The oil is in the huge bunches of nuts that hang 30ft up in the air and can weigh 35kg.
They have to be cut out using long aluminium poles with a curved knife at the top; very sharp, heavy and unwieldy too! Its hazardous work, too, and workers have to avoid injury from falling nuts and from the sharp spikes that grow within the bunches.
The way in which tractors were driven would scare any UK health and safety inspector. I saw overloaded trailers, people hitching a ride on drawbars, drivers who kept their foot on the clutch all the time and tractors that were constantly out of use because of punctures.
I began by sitting with each individual driver to test and grade them. They were not happy about this and felt nervous and threatened by my presence. One tried to scare me by driving fast along a mountain road with his wheels on the extreme outer edge. I was terrified; he was sacked!
Continual punctures
The chap with continual punctures I trailed secretly and found him deliberately dragging his tyres along the sides of the palm trees so that the spikes slashed and punctured his tyres. Then he would sleep until another vehicle came by to rescue him, a process that might take all day.
Once Id got over the culture shock, the work was great. I would tour the various plantations in the 4WD Toyota provided inspecting their drivers. Sometimes I would take my lunch break beside the reefs and blue, blue waters of the Pacific.
Teaching involved three makes of tractors, a Massey Ferguson 390, New Holland 7640 and TS90 and a Chinese tractor called a Shanghai. We had mostly the latter, which had been bought new in batches of 20 as part of the expansion programme.
They cost half the price of the others but were less robust. Particularly infuriating was a gearbox with one gear lever and two ratios found through two different neutral positions. It was hard to know which gear you were in!
There is a mechanised method of palm nut collection which involves a Massey 390 and trailer fitted with a Hiab crane to lift nets of fruit into the trailers. In the past all collection was done by wheelbarrow; it still is in areas difficult to get a tractor into.
My job also involved teaching new recruits – many of whom spoke only pidgin – to drive and to reverse scissor-lift trailers and then tip into a large skip bin. They also had to be able to maintain a walking speed using a low gear to allow the manual loaders to keep pace with the tractor. Finally, they had to learn not to use the clutch to control their speed.
Bureaucracy was a cause of constant frustration. On one occasion I had 10 boys, ready for their test but without the licences they needed to be able to start work for the company. So it was off to the Traffic Office in the local town, which a sign said opened at 9am. At 9.30 it was still closed and at 10.30 a lady came and opened the door. She had been shopping, apparently.
We asked for our licences, but were told us that there would be no more licences issued till next January (it was now October). And anyway, the department had run out of film for their camera so they couldnt put the owners photo on the licences!
After some consultations with my companys security chief (who was related to a minister in the Traffic Office), I returned armed with a roll of film and a small present for the office lady. We sailed through in record time.
Two and a half years later I had completed four driving courses and found work for about 50 young men. The programme was running well and I was becoming surplus to requirements. Anyhow, the world price of palm oil had plummeted and there were moves within the company to save money. So I decided to call it a day.
I miss this job a lot. It was special and allowed me to learn much about the culture of Papua New Guinea, not to mention oil palm production. I wonder what experiences others have had from responding to a farmers weekly advertisement.