Online sale of Thai durian on the rise

BANGKOK, April 11 (TNA) - The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives says that sale volumes of varieties of Thai durian through online social media platforms have considerably increased, raising the prices of the Thai fruit and income of local growers. Anchana Tracho, Deputy Secretary General of the ministry's Office of Agricultural Economics (OAE), made the remarks in Bangkok on April 10, acknowledging that more and more local durian orchards have resorted to such popular online social media systems as Facebook and Line to directly sell their products to consumers with their quality guarantee and delivery service through the state-run ThailandPost or private firms. Anchana told journalists that the direct sale of varieties of Thai durian through the online social media systems by local growers has made their produce prices and income become higher than the market benchmark. Besides, some local durian orchards have clinched deals with buyers to sell all produce from certain durian trees at the price of about 150 baht per kilogram. According to the senior official, her office's recent survey of local durian orchards in Rayong, Chanthaburi and Trat in the East found that most of them opted to sell their produce to fruit screening firms, before locally-grown durians with different quality grades would be sold to retail store chains in the country and exported to China. The senior official stated that local agricultural cooperatives have also played a key role as the middle men between local durian growers and fruit trading firms, covering issuing the quality certifications to the fruit businesses, based on the internationally-recognized Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), and having the fresh Thai durian processed, frozen and hygienically-packed for exports to China, the United States and other foreign markets to boost confidence of buyers and the prices of the varieties of Thai durian. (TNA)