The True Cost Of Durian’s Explosive Growth | True Cost | Business Insider

durian is the king of fruits in asia and demand is off the charts the value of durian imports in china is now greater than cherries and bananas combined farmers in malaysia are cashing in on the craze and even the royal family wants in but this growing business has come at a cost now small farmers are stuck in a ruthless land battle with a big corporation and the local government so why is this smelly fruit causing so much conflict we went to malaysia to investigate the true cost of one of asia's most popular fruits a state government in malaysia cut 15 000 durian trees this is public land and these farms are not technically legal but farmers cultivated these trees for generations without problem and they're the ones who popularized this special variety of durian musang king it sold for an average 32 dollars and 50 cents a pound in malaysia during the 2021 season that's more than double this season's average price for live maine lobster farmers like tamway kiyat say the destruction of durian farms is a scare tactic to either push them off the land or sign an unfair contract tan's father started growing durian here in the early 2000s tan took over the farm a decade ago but in july he lost everything [Music] this is the first time tan has seen his durian trees since they were destroyed one tick tock video that went viral in malaysia appears to show state authorities cutting down durian trees [Music] this is what farmers saw when they returned to their land tan now works at a durian collection stall in raub a township of a hundred thousand people known as the durian capital of malaysia the fruits undergo a careful quality check here before it's picked up by local and international buyers says it's easy for him to tell good fruit from bad fruit since he's worked with durian most of his life that's critical because buyers selling durian to countries like china expect the fruit to be flawless the best durians come from trees that are more than a decade old workers look through up to 400 baskets of durian a day during the peak seasons which run from july to september and december to march the majority of durians exported out of this region end up in singapore kelvin tan runs the operation here at 99 old trees he started this durian business in 2017. this storefront is just a small part of calvin's operation he also sells wholesale frozen durian to buyers in china calvin says business has never been better traditionally every durian season a lot of singaporeans will travel up to malaysia to eat durians there because it's cheaper there right because of this pandemic most of these they have no choice but to just eat in singapore that is why it has actually resulted in a higher sales for us than sells nearly a dozen varieties of durian during peak harvest season he's meticulous about the quality of the fruit in a good moosan king what we look out for is number one the color fragrance like when the moment you open the durian there should be a whiff of fake fragrance and of course uh the creaminess so check out the creaminess okay so this example durian that cannot pass our quality control these are all semi-ripe flesh the taste is pretty awful so for this kind of sub standard durian we will have to reject them calvin's team sells up to 4 000 pounds of durian a day up from nearly 900 in 2018. he says increasing chinese demand and loosening regulations fundamentally changed the durian business china imported a record 2.3 billion dollars worth of durian in 2020 a number that has quadrupled since 2017. farmers in raub struggle to keep up with demand chang mun has farmed durian for more than a decade in july the state government tore down two-thirds of his trees today he's picking up the last durians of the season the trees chang lost were the ones his father planted more than 20 years ago now he has 240 trees left on seven acres of licensed land it's barely enough to support his wife parents and two children the conflict began in 2020 that's when the government leased more than 5 thousand acres of land in rob to a private company royal pahang durian group its biggest shareholder the malaysian royal family the royal family the state government and the corporation are working together and they've given farmers just two options get off the land or sign a contract that caps profits forces them to work and gives them less money for small harvests the 30 years period of the contract you need to work inside your lane abandon your land you may be penalized this is chao you hey he's a state assemblyman for raobs cha's district the royal palm during legalization scheme is an unequal and unfair contract or scheme to the farmers that treated the farmers as a modern slave chao has been advocating for durian farmers for the past year this is the action by the state government to create the fear among the farmers and force them to sign the unequal contract with the royal palm duran farmers refused to sign the contract and filed a lawsuit instead they also organized to form the save musang king alliance [Applause] [Music] the state government told local journalists that the trees that cut down were in a national forest preserve farmers argue that the land was protected by a january court decision the state that governs raub declined to comment to insider as did royal baham durian group citing an ongoing lawsuit with farmers you have a far bomb for malaysia's durian business continues to expand royal baham durian group plans to build the largest durian processing facility in malaysia and by 2030 the country's durian exports are expected to increase by 50 percent but will small farmers see any of the profits or will the durian craze cost them everything [Music]

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Length: 8min 39sec (519 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 07 2021