Dry spell affecting Penang’s durian season, yield likely to plunge 50%: Official

SEBERANG PERAI — The El Niño phenomenon in the past few months has led to a lesser yield of seasonal fruits this season, the Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority (Fama)’s Penang director Habibah Sulaiman said on Wednesday (April 27).

She said they are expecting a whopping 40 to 50 per cent reduction of seasonal fruits such as durians and rambutans.

“The last few months’ weather has been dry and hot so we are expecting lesser yield of all seasonal fruits this time,” she told reporters before launching a Fama course for farmers in Kepala Batas here.

She said there were some rain recorded in the past few days and hoped it would continue.

“The rain will help slightly as the season is starting in mid-May and lasts till mid-September,” she said.

This year, Fama is expecting a total yield of 2,929.24 metric tonnes of seasonal fruits for this year’s season.

Out of the 2,929.24 metric tonnes, a total 2,089.65 metric tonnes are durians while the rest are rambutan, mangosteen, cempedak and dokong.

This year, Fama will also export local rambutans from Kampung Selamat here to European markets for the first time.

“We will test the market first by exporting one metric ton first,” she said.

The variety of rambutan to be exported are “anak sekolah” and “deli” which Ms Habibah says are of better quality and suitable for exporting.

“This is why we organise this course now, it is to prepare the farmers so that they know what to do to produce rambutans for export,” she said.

She said Penang’s rambutans have the potential to be exported and Fama is targeting Dubai and parts of Europe.

Currently, Fama is already exporting Penang durians to several countries such as China, Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and US.

“Our Penang durians have a good demand in the export market and we will continue with the exports this year,” she said.

The lesser yield will not affect the export market of the durians as Fama will be exporting 20 metric tonnes of the Musang King and Duri Hitam variety.

Durian season starts in mid-May and Habibah said that prices for the fruit may soar due to the lesser yields this year.

“We can’t ignore the basics of economy where there’s high demand and lesser products, prices may increase,” she said. THE MALAY MAIL ONLINE