Want to try China’s first domestically grown durian? Better head to Hainan, or wait a few years
- Only about 50 tonnes of durian are now expected from the Chinese province this year – far less than earlier estimates and nowhere close to the roughly 1 million tonnes that China will consume in 2023
- Hainan will vastly expand planting acreage in the coming years to meet surging durian demand, bring down prices
China’s home-grown durian is finally expected to hit the market this month, but it could be years before the vast majority of consumers can get their hands on it, and estimates for projected yields have fallen sharply in recent months, according to an expert on tropical fruits.
In the tropical island province of Hainan, farmers are gearing up for the nation’s first large-scale domestic durian harvest after more than four years of cultivation. They are keen to cash in on the growing domestic demand for what has quickly become China’s most popular imported fruit – one that is native to Southeast Asia and known for its uniquely potent smell.
But Feng Xuejie, director of the Institute of Tropical Fruit Trees at the Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and a researcher at the Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, expects that Hainan will only produce around 50 tonnes (110,000 pounds) of durian this year, according to a report by state broadcaster CCTV on Saturday. That would account for only about 0.005 per cent of all the durian eaten in China this year.
Last month, Feng was quoted by the Red Star News media outlet as saying that the March figure had been “overestimated”, as “there is no large area of fruit-bearing yet”.
“Some durian plots are blooming, some plots are not blooming,” he said in May.
