Natural rubber needs new R&D strategies

NATURAL rubber is a significant contributor to the global rubber industry. Many rubber-based products depend on natural rubber for quality and performance. In fact, some products, such as aviation tyres, depend fully on natural rubber for their manufacture.

Over the years, the world has at times experienced uncertainties in the supply of natural rubber. Much of the uncertainties have been attributed to the price volatility of natural rubber.

In times of very low prices, producers who nowadays comprise mainly small farmers, tend to cut down their latex harvest.

Despite various initiatives at the global and regional levels to stabilise prices, price volatility continues to be an issue especially for the small producers and it is now accepted as a reality by the industry.

It is time to think of better ways to cope with that reality as it is no longer tenable to just reduce supply to support prices.

Instead of curtailing supply, the strategy should address how to efficiently absorb the surplus. An option that has been widely considered is to venture downstream and invest in the manufacture of value-added products. That way, in times of low prices, the downstream business would compensate for the losses upstream.

It is no longer sustainable for the natural rubber sector to narrowly focus on the upstream. With the rise of the global green economy, venturing downstream will make it even more attractive for natural rubber. This is because as an industrial elastomer, it meets all the requirements of a green material.

However, in order to effectively capture the emerging opportunities in the green economy, there must be strong support for R&D. This is why there should be serious rethinking about the R&D strategies in the natural rubber industry. We need to transform the R&D landscape if we are to move positively forward.

How do we proceed with the R&D transformation? Reduce R&D in improvising the rubber tapping system.

This has been going on for decades with no realistic end in sight. It is a waste of R&D money. Instead, R&D should be strengthened in the biotechnology area.

While researchers in the oil palm industry have made significant headway in unravelling the oil palm genome, their natural rubber counterparts are still struggling to achieve progress.

Unravelling the genome is key to any subsequent research not only to improve yield but also to explore realistic potential for the modification of the material for improved properties.

In fact, it is a widely acknowledged fact that many world researchers are now working hard to deploy biotechnology to eventually manufacture natural rubber in fermenters.

Though still remote, scientists believe it is possible.

Admittedly, one major obstacle in biotechnology research is the higher costs involved but there is a way to resolve this – collaboration. The well-established International Rubber Research and Development Board is there to provide a platform for collaboration and cooperation in natural rubber research.

The initial years saw very active collaboration among member institutes in areas such as the development of truck tyre retreads, joint research to develop earthquake rubber bearings, exchange of rubber clones, joint effort to fight the highly dangerous leaf disease rampant in Brazil and many more.

Lately, there has been a sad decline in such collaborative research work. The reality of the present era is that collaboration in science is the only way forward. We as a nation need to seriously reassess our position. We need to be more active in influencing the collaborative research activities of the board.

The natural rubber industry has often been put down as a sunset industry. How can it be so when the global demand for the material has continued to rise? How can it be labelled sunset when the material is still indispensable in many rubber products?

There are still many products where natural rubber cannot be replaced by the synthetic material. And as a renewable rubber material, the expanding green economy will no doubt create more demand opportunities for natural rubber. But we need to put in the right effort to capture such potential. We need to re-strategise our R&D focus.

PROF DATUK DR AHMAD IBRAHIM

Academy of Sciences Malaysia