China-ASEAN Durian Industry Seminar Takes the Pulse of "Durian Fever"——
Deng Weizhe, reporter of Farmer's Daily · China Rural Net
Tourists experience picking "ripe on the tree" durian at the Sanya base of Hainan Youqi.
Recently, the China-ASEAN Durian Industry Seminar was held in Sanya, Hainan Province. More than 600 experts, scholars, entrepreneurs and representatives of relevant government departments from the durian industry at home and abroad exchanged views on the development trend, technological innovation and market opportunities of the global durian industry, and promoted the high-quality development of the durian industry.
In 2019, a small number of 44 durian trees introduced in Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, Hainan Province in the early years bloomed and fruited, which attracted great attention from durian practitioners at home and abroad, and also opened a new page of durian planting in China.
The mainland is the world's largest consumer of durian. According to the data, the import volume of fresh durian in 2023 will be 1.426 million tons, a year-on-year increase of more than 70%, accounting for 91% of the world's durian trade, and showing a rapid growth trend. From a global point of view, the people who like to eat durian the most are Chinese, and in an economy dominated by Chinese, where the economy is good, durian will be sold well.
Because of the huge demand for durian consumption in mainland China, the China-ASEAN durian industry seminar attracted nearly 100 practitioners from major durian producing countries in Southeast Asia to gather in Sanya, in addition to understanding the commercial cultivation of durian in China, and more importantly, hoping to study and judge the consumption trend of durian in China together with Chinese consumers and distributors.
Win-win cooperation boosts industrial upgrading
The founder of Wenji Durian, who has been in Southeast Asia for 12 years, has witnessed the golden decade of the rapid development of the durian industry in Southeast Asian countries. At the seminar, Wen Chao said that while the import volume of durian in the mainland is growing rapidly, the unit price of imports is also growing steadily, which proves that there is still a lot of room for demand in the domestic durian market. At the same time, domestic consumers have higher and higher requirements for durian quality, and they are becoming more and more diversified.
"In recent years, the planting area and output of durian in Southeast Asian countries have risen rapidly, and it is expected that in five or six years, the annual durian import volume of the mainland will reach 5 million tons." Wen Chao made a comparative analysis of a group of data on major domestic imported fruits, and at present, the mainland imports 60,000 tons of blueberries, 347,000 tons of cherries, 1.2 million tons of sunshine rose grapes, 1.42 million tons of durian, and 7.5 million tons of mandarin oranges every year. "With the continuous rise in the number of imports, the downward trend of the sales price of durian is an inevitable trend, and the market demand will always be saturated one day." Wen Chao said.
Durian production and sales have a lot of uncertainties, product sales need long-distance transportation, durian is a ripening fruit, sensitive to temperature, large and irregular fruit, these factors have particularly high requirements for the quality control of durian procurement and sales, it is difficult to achieve standardized, data-based quality control, more often rely on experience, these need to be constantly exchanged and improved by domestic and foreign counterparts.
Qiu Mingzhou, a durian distributor in Malaysia, said that with the approval of Malaysia's fresh durian fruits for export to China this year, more Chinese consumers and growers will experience the quality of ripe durian from the origin tree, and will also promote the improvement of Hainan durian planting and quality control level.
Duria Satie, Secretary-General of the Thai-Chinese Agricultural Trade Association, said that ASEAN, as China's largest trading partner, will have more durian fresh fruits from Southeast Asian countries to obtain access to China, and the competition in China's durian market will become more and more fierce, and the requirements for high quality are the inevitable trend, and the requirements for logistics distribution and insurance will be higher and higher.
The flame of firewood is high, and the development of the industry needs scientific and technological support and alliance connection. During the seminar, the China-ASEAN Durian Science and Technology Innovation Alliance was formally established, and Liu Zuokai, Secretary of the Party Group of the Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, who served as the chairman of the alliance, believed that the establishment of the alliance will promote the integration of durian scientific research, technology and industrial application in the China-ASEAN region, and be more beneficial to the development of the whole industry chain of Hainan durian.
Domestic durian from 0 to 1
Durian is a typical tropical cash crop, and the choice of planting place is particularly strict, and the gold standard values of latitude, sunshine, temperature, humidity and precipitation are indispensable. Du Baizhong, president of Hainan Durian Association and general manager of Hainan Youqi Agricultural Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Hainan Youqi"), told reporters that Hainan Youqi, as the main pioneer of domestic durian, has successively planted more than 13,000 acres of durian in Sanya, Ledong Li Autonomous County and Baoting, Hainan Province, and after 5 years of unremitting efforts, it will successfully produce 60 tons of fruit in 2023, and the output will grow steadily this year, and it is expected to exceed 200 tons, marking the success of domestic durian commercial cultivation.
At present, the planting area of durian in Hainan Province is about 40,000 mu, and the "ripe on the tree" durian in Sanya, Baoting, Ledong and other places has been listed one after another, and the popularity continues to be unabated and the supply exceeds demand. On July 19, Hainan's first domestic durian brand flagship store opened in Sanya, which also means that domestic durian has officially entered thousands of households from the field.
"Durian is 'pampered', and it needs to be fully prepared before daring to explore the way to plant." Du Baizhong bluntly said that the successful commercial cultivation of domestic durian is not easy to come by, and it is difficult to describe the hardships. Hainan Youqi is the only unit in the country with the qualification of import and export durian seedlings, while introducing foreign high-quality germplasm resources, making full use of the seed industry innovation achievements of domestic scientific research institutions over the years, to build its own variety breeding and seedling multiplication system.
There is a gap between the climatic conditions of durian planting in China and the main durian producing countries in Southeast Asia, and the shortcomings can only be made up for through scientific and fine management. At present, the major durian planting bases in Hainan are basically reducing the risk of typhoons by establishing an integrated automatic irrigation system of water and fertilizer, adopting organic ecological planting, and cooperating with appropriate intensive planting, dwarf management, and treeside support.
Compared with imported durian that is "ripe on the road", Hainan durian benefits from the location advantage of unified production and sales area, which can be "ripe on the tree", with higher sweetness, rich fragrance and softer taste. Du Baizhong said that with the growth of production, the company is actively deploying the upstream and downstream of the industry, including durian stores, scenic spots, e-commerce, intra-city and other channels, as well as domestic durian garden sightseeing and tasting and other agricultural and tourism integration products, making Sanya durian a new Hainan agricultural tourism business card.
In the face of the absolute quantitative advantage of imported durian, Zhou Zhaoxi, an associate researcher at the Chinese Academy of Tropical Agricultural Sciences, believes that the pursuit of quality and quantity of domestic durian is more important, and it is necessary to avoid blind expansion under the consumption boom, not to copy foreign technology and development models, and to adhere to the priority of quality.
"The commercial cultivation of domestic durian from 0 to 1 is the expansion of the world's durian territory, which is of symbolic significance, the seedlings have grown into trees, and the trees have grown into forests." Wen Chao believes that there is no need to worry too much about the rapid rise in production of durian practitioners at home and abroad, as long as the major producing areas strengthen exchanges and cooperation, improve the level of flowering management, and do a good job of relatively staggered peak listing, the durian industry will continue to develop healthily and steadily.
Under the boom, you need to think coldly
"In the past few years, more than 2,000 friends have consulted durian planting on mobile phones, and the popularity of domestic durian has always been very high." Wang Xinyu, general manager of Qingdao Xingguang Jiahe Supply Chain Management Co., Ltd., which is engaged in durian industry technical services in Hainan, said bluntly that the reason why durian planting is so concerned is mainly because the sales price of durian has remained high.
"Under the craze, you need to think coldly." Wang Xinyu reminded that the high income expectation makes many people want to join the durian industry, but durian planting has high requirements for climatic conditions, capital investment, planting management technology, etc., and social forces must be cautious when investing in the market, and any mistake in any of them will cause heavy losses.
In terms of specific investment, Wang Xinyu said: "It generally takes more than 5 years from planting to the first fruit, and it takes even longer to enter the harvest period. If you want to enter the durian industry, you generally rent 50 acres of land, a one-time transfer fee of 30,000 yuan per mu, a management fee of 20,000 yuan from land preparation to 5 years, and an investment of 50,000 yuan per mu, 50 acres is 2.5 million yuan, and the demand for funds is very large. ”
From the perspective of climatic conditions, Huang Zhengen, president of the Hainan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, introduced that durian is a typical tropical crop with high requirements for environmental conditions, and there are not many areas suitable for planting in China. China's land and labor costs are higher than those of ASEAN, and the cost of durian cultivation is high. Some enterprises in Yunnan, Guangdong, Guangxi and other hot areas have begun to try planting, but they have not yet begun to bear fruit.
In order to reduce the risk of durian planting, a few days ago, Hainan's first durian tree planting insurance was landed in Sanya, and Sanya Agriculture and Rural Bureau and PICC Property Insurance Sanya Branch provided effective protection for the losses suffered by natural disasters and pests and diseases such as heavy rain, wind and drought in the process of durian planting. All durian trees planted in Sanya for 2 years or more can participate in the insurance, with the self-payment ratio of the policyholder being 40% and the financial subsidy ratio being 60%, hoping to provide a comprehensive guarantee for the sustainable and stable development of the durian industry.
"As the main durian producing area in the world, Southeast Asian countries have low land and labor costs, a long history of planting, rich germplasm resources, sufficient technology precipitation, and obvious market advantages." Huang Zhengen believes that through a comprehensive analysis of resources, markets and opportunities, the durian industry in Hainan should not be limited to durian planting, but can make full use of the advantages of the international free trade port policy and the construction of Nanfan Silicon Valley, increase international exchanges and cooperation, and explore the establishment of a global durian business and trade center, science and technology innovation center, intellectual property trading center, and international tourism consumption center.