IN April 2018, then agriculture and agro-based industry minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek was quoted to have said 1ha of musang king trees can yield RM155,250 a year for a farmer.

At that time, the price for a musang king durian was RM25 per kg. Based on this representation, it appears that 1ha can yield on average 6,200kg of musang king durians per annum for a farmer to be able to earn RM155,250 a year.

On July 10, the Pahang Forestry Department proclaimed that in nine days, they have cut down some 15,000 musang king trees in an area measuring 101ha in a forest reserve.

As 1ha yield an average of 6,200kg, 101ha should have yielded an average of 626,200kg of musang king durians this year if they were not cut down. Today’s price for the same musang king durian is approximately RM40 per kg.

Effectively, RM25.048 million, which would be earned by the farmers for this year, are not going in to our nation’s economic ecosystem.

This revenue not only goes to the farmers who earned it through their hard work and perseverance, but it will go back to the nation’s economy. Even if they don’t spend it on capital expenditure items like buying more land or properties with the revenues earned, by keeping it in the banking system helps the banks to lend more to others, generating a multiplier effect on our economy.

As the export price for the durians is approximately RM100 per kg at today’s price – the price differential of RM60 being the multiplier effect that would be generated in the economy’s ecosystem such as the transport and logistics industry, the packaging industry – the country lost a further amount of RM37.5 million in revenue and productivity effectively, losing a total of RM62 million solely this year.

If the fruits per tree calculation are used, the potential loss in earnings that could probably go back into our nation’s economic ecosystem would be astronomical.

For the musang king variety, it will start fruiting after three years. After seven years, the fruiting will reach commercial viability producing on average up to 50 durians per tree per season. In a year where it fruits twice, the trees can produce on average 100 durians per annum.

As each musang king durian weighs between 2kg and 3kg on average, 15,000 trees would have yielded a minimum of three million kg on the assumption that each weighed the minimal 2kg.

At today’s price of RM100 per kg for exports, the country lost, in total, an estimated RM300 million both in earnings and multiplier effect to the nation’s economy.

Thus, the total losses for the country in 2021 range from RM62 million to RM300 million from nine days of work.

And all the above are just a prudent estimate based on minimum parameters.

Assuming the trees felled are of average age of 10 years, which is the prime age and with the trees able to produce up to a maximum of 25 years, the country is staring at total cumulative effect ranging from RM620 million to RM3 billion that could have been earned and the multiplier effect it has to the nation’s economy if the trees were not felled.

And the multiplier effect includes taxes on transactions for lands and the opening up of more idle land to turn productive. With the demand for musang king durians grown mostly in Pahang, the farmers contributed in setting new price levels for farm lands in the state, which otherwise would have stayed stagnant and unmarketable. Since 2013, land prices in Raub rose almost 300%. This benefitted a lot of land owners whose land could have been idle and not yielding any productive produce.

Durian was included as one of the chosen fruits in the Malaysian National Agro-food Policy (2011-2020) that can help in the growth of the nation’s economy, which was reiterated again in May 2019 where the government announced plans to encourage farmers to invest in agro tourism, where durian was identified as a new source of agricultural wealth.

Despite that, the country saw a decline in total production from 2013 to 2017 only for it to climb back to 2013 level in 2019.

There is a total of 1.576 million durian trees in Peninsular Malaysia, with musang king trees totalling 569,000. As of today, this number has been reduced by 15,000.

If other states in our country does not pick up and fill this void, what we lost would be a gain to someone else.

Already, there was a rush in the past few years to plant clones of the musang king variety by our neighbours.

In 2017, a team of durian loving scientists in Singapore completed the genetic mapping of the musang king durian with their paper on their study published online in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics.

The existing supply of the musang king variety, presently being supplied entirely from Malaysia, apparently can only meet 3% of global demand while overall we account for only 10% of the total exported into China, which imported almost US$1.6 billion (RM6.7 billion) worth of durians in the first half of 2020.

Maybe the authorities thought that since Malaysians consumed an average of 11kg per person of durian per annum while China only consumes only 0.21kg of durian per person, we don’t need to depend on the export market for growth of our most famous fruit.

Additionally, instead of the earnings from these trees, the state of Pahang is going to incur costs to rehabilitate the land the trees are being planted for them to plant other species. Reportedly, the Meranti Temak Nipis species would be planted at the site. Even though Meranti Temak Nipis, which belongs to the White meranti timber group, is a very common and widespread species in Peninsular Malaysia and are harvested for its timber to be used for bridge building, construction, furniture and other tools, it is assessed as Vulnerable in the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species. Meaning this species is at risk of extinction.

Using the estimates provided by the Pahang government of RM20 million to rehabilitate an area of 600ha in Tasik Chini, Pekan, it is presumed that the rehabilitation of this 101ha should not cost less than RM5 million.

Any such rehabilitation would be expensive to carry out, with the benefits that could derive from the today’s planting can only be tapped perhaps a decade or more in the future. – July 13, 2021.

* FLK reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.