It's been 100 years since the first planting of oil palm in Malaysia. Here's its story

Malaysia's palm-oil industry owes much to a Frenchman whose passion was writing, not agriculture. It was Henri Fauconnier who planted the first oil palm in Malaya back in April 1917 - making 2017 the centenary of this cash crop.

Malaysia is so dominant in the palm-oil industry today that many assume that it has a long history in the country. But the palm, actually native to West Africa, was brought to Malaya only in the colonial era.

Fauconnier's fame rests on The Soul of Malaya, published in France in 1930. In the book, a French planter's designs on a Malay woman are foiled by her father in a story that also highlights the havoc that the plantations were wreaking in the lives of ordinary Malayans.