Malaysia’s durian farmers are being squeezed from both ends: weather is cutting yields, and prices are falling just as growers try to sell into a market dominated by Thailand and Vietnam. In Karak, Stephen Chow said the pressure has become hard to ignore after a season of heat, rain and lower returns.
That matters now because Chow is already staring at a likely loss in 2026. Grade A Musang King durians from his orchard sold in early July for the equivalent of $8.6 per kilogram, about half the price in the same period last year and roughly one-third of the peak reached in 2024. For a grower who has spent years trying to protect fruit from changing weather, the market has turned just as the trees have become more vulnerable.
Chow’s orchard sits in Karak, about an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur, and the damage has been building for years. In 2021, heavy rainfall flooded the property, damaging about 100 of his durian trees and machinery. Over the following three years, rain during flowering season disrupted pollination and cut his yield. Between February and April, afternoon temperatures at the orchard reached 33 to 35 degrees Celsius, while rain fell mostly at night, forcing him to prune more, water more and increase fertilization just to keep the trees producing.
The higher costs have come from more than weather. Chow said fuel and fertilizer prices rose because of the Iran war, adding another layer of pressure to an orchard already under strain. That helps explain why the expansion of Malaysia’s crop area has not translated into easy money for farmers like him. The country’s durian crop covered 92,100 hectares in 2024, almost 40% more than in 2016, but much of that increase reflects new orchards reaching maturity at the same time growers are dealing with extreme weather and softer prices.
Malaysia’s premium durians, especially Musang King and Black Thorn, remain in demand because China keeps importing huge volumes of the fruit, but the supply chain is crowded. Thailand and Vietnam dominate China’s market, leaving Malaysian growers to fight for space while coping with climate-related damage that has become more frequent and more expensive. Chow said workers spend hours in the fields in the dead of night collecting freshly ripened fruit, a reminder that even the harvest now has to be timed around the weather.
For Chow, the question is no longer whether the orchard can produce fruit. It is whether a season marked by flooding, heat and weaker prices can still cover the bill. He said breaking even would already be very good, and most likely there will be a loss this year.
