KOH MAK ISLAND: THE EARLY INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION

Since the era of Choa Sua Seng, about 100 years ago, most people on Koh Mak has been making their life earnings through the coconut industry. I was told that Choa Sua Seng was the first who started a coconut plantation, but he wasn't successful. Later on, he sold most of his plantation land to the group of Luang Prompakdee and his friends. Since then, coconut plantation has become a major industrial production on Koh Mak.

Coconut production isn't difficult to follow but it's the time that is essentially needed. It takes approximately 10 years before you can start to harvest coconuts. After the harvest, it takes another 3 days for the entire production process, from peeling and cleaving to burning, milling and packing. In the early age, people used the buffaloes to draw a cart that carried coconuts instead of today's tractor.

Later on, the coconut industry encountered a problem due to the inconvenience of transportation. There was only a cargo ship which took between one and 3 days to the mainland for delivery. Was it worth it when coconuts price was quite cheap and still took more time to transport? Maybe during that time, the price was reasonable, 3 Baht per each coconut, with everything was still cheap. However, the price has been about the same until today, very much consistent. I don't think people make a lot of money out of this coconut business, only sufficient to survive.

Since the age of rubber tree plantation, coconut production began decreasing. People started to plant rubber trees instead because of its good price. Although rubber price rose and fell, it was always better than coconuts price. Khun Somchai Sudhidhanakul, whose family has been doing these two businesses for generations, said, “My parents brought rubber tree seeds from the south to grow on the island. The price was like rising and falling but yes it was better than coconuts price that has always been low. Actually my dad did both businesses. When rubber price was dropped down, he destroyed rubber trees and grow coconut trees instead.”

One great fact of coconuts was that coconuts can be harvested during the whole year, but you can't do much on cutting rubber tree plantation during the rainy season. Somehow, both industries today have become the major business for people on the island.

Coconut Production

From the past, the production process of coconut has been changed a bit. As mentioned, it takes quite long time to grow coconuts before harvesting. The harvest of coconuts on the island is different from the southern island of Thailand where they use monkeys to climb the trees and get coconuts. The reason is easy because people need to train them first to behave well, not going to bite the owner, but that will surely take time. Here, on the island, people uses a long bamboo with hook at the end to pick coconuts. The person who does the job will know which coconuts can be used, just by looking at the embryo bud of a coconut tree.

There are actually 2 types of coconuts: the one used for household like cooking ingredients such as coconut milk, and transformation such as cooking oil, bio-diesel oil or soaps or cosmetic products, the other one is young coconuts as a fresh drink. Mostly, people pick an overripe and hard coconut to use for household and transformation.

To begin with the process of transformation, after the harvest, the operators peel off the coconut skin and they are left only as coconut shells. Then they chop them in half and leave them to dry under a bright sunny day or grill them in a huge kiln during the rainy season. They fill a kiln with lots of coconut until it's full and there is no more space.

The grilling process takes about 3 days until all coconuts are cool enough to take out the coconut meat. Next, they separate the shells and coconut meat for its different uses. For the shells, people can keep it to use for two reasons: first is for merchandise, and second is for use as charcoal for household cooking. For the grilled coconut meat, the operators chop or mill them. But before the modern technology of a mill arrived, they used to chop them by hand. It is only one day for milling. The last process is packing them in a sack and delivering them to the factory for transformation.

Another use for hard coconut is for cooking ingredients, coconut milk or ice cream. People used only the coconut meat for those. They scraped its meat with the special equipment – the tiny chair with the sharp head to use for scraping, did it one by one and took long time. But today, it's much easier with the compressed machine, and much faster. After all, scraped coconuts need to squeeze out only liquid.

Rubber Trees Production

The popularity of rubber tree plantation has increased since coconuts' prices has been decreasing. People cultivated more rubber trees in most areas. Like Khun Somchai's father, most people replaced coconut trees with rubber trees. Rubber trees' price has been increasing over years. It was 7 Baht per kilo but today it is 60 – 70 Baht. Quite a big number, so this is undoubtedly why people have been investing more on rubber tree plantation.

A rubber tree takes approximately 5 years to grow, and the sixth year will be the perfect time to cut. You need to be an expert to be able to do a great job on cutting rubber trees, otherwise those trees can't be used for cutting any longer. With its rubbers, one rubber tree can help you make a good living for 10 years.

The process isn't so complicated. After the full growth of rubber trees, people go to cut rubbers, but it is recommended to do it mostly at night. It can be done during the day too but the hot temperature isn't actually good for rubbers. People only need three pieces of equipment: rubbers tray, acid and stirring. They filter rubbers liquid in a tray, drop acids on top and stir it and leave it there for 3 hours for its stiffening. The last step is to transform it into a rubber plate, deliver to the factory.

Unfortunately this production can't proceed during the rainy season. But somehow I think people still can make a great living with its price, for the rest of the year.