Palm oil producers look to prisons, rehab centres to solve labour crunch

Malaysia's labour-reliant palm oil companies are looking to recruit recovering drug addicts and prisoners to solve a severe shortage of migrant foreign workers as the coronavirus pandemic shuts borders and hampers output of the edible oil.

Planters in the world's second-largest producer have in recent months embarked on rare recruitment drives to hire locals to do everything from harvesting to fertilising crops, but the response has been lukewarm...