Graded by the buyer

Thailand sent 979,045 tonnes of fresh durian abroad in 2025, worth US$4,368 million.

Nearly all of it went to one country. Of that total, 920,763.85 tonnes went to China, worth about US$3,998.88 million. Fresh fruit is Thailand’s largest agricultural export category, durian is the largest fresh fruit in it, and China takes around 97 per cent of the fresh-fruit export value.

That is not a market. It is a customer.

The market grew. Thailand did not.

China imported 1.86 million tonnes of durian in 2025 — a record, up 20 per cent on the year before, worth around US$7.48 billion. Two years earlier the figure was 1.42 million tonnes.

So the buyer’s appetite grew by roughly 440,000 tonnes in two years.

Thailand’s value in that market went down. Thai durian exports to China were worth about US$4 billion in 2025, a fall of 0.4 per cent. Vietnam’s were worth US$3.44 billion, up 17.1 per cent — and in volume terms Vietnam shipped around 940,000 tonnes, up 27.7 per cent, overtaking Thailand for the first time.

The Thai industry did not shrink. Volume was up 9.4 per cent on the year. It simply did not grow at the speed of the thing it depends on, and somebody else took the difference — helped, on the trade ministry’s own account, by shorter distances, lower freight costs and therefore a lower shelf price.

And the unit price of the whole market is falling. China’s imports in 2023 averaged out near US$4,700 a tonne. By 2025, on 1.86 million tonnes and US$7.48 billion, the average was near US$4,000. More fruit, cheaper fruit.

What that looks like at the orchard gate

Here is where the article stops using dollars, because the farm-gate figures are published in baht and comparing the two would mean constructing an exchange rate and calling the result a fact. It is not one. So: baht against baht.

At the start of the 2026 eastern season, in late March and early April, when very little fruit was ready, grade AB Monthong reached ฿190–200 a kilo at the orchard gate.

Once the harvest arrived, grade AB settled at ฿130, then ฿135–140 from late April.

Fruit that missed the size or the grade — the same trees, the same orchard, the same week — was bought at ฿70–80 a kilo.

And the average across the whole crop is forecast near ฿90 a kilo, below ฿100 for the second year running.

Read those four numbers together and the shape is obvious. The headline price — the one in the newspaper, the one a grower quotes — is ฿135–140. The average is ฿90. The gap between them is the fruit that did not make the grade.

So the number that decides a Thai durian grower’s year is not the price. The price is published daily and everybody knows it. It is the grade.

Who decides the grade

Thailand’s durian export system is, on paper, exactly what this site has said good markets need.

There is a product standard. Fruit is tested for dry matter content — a measurable proxy for ripeness — before it can be certified for export. There is a published price, quoted daily by grade, by province.

And there is a register at both ends. A grower must hold GAP certification and be on the list of orchards China recognises; around 30,000 Thai durian orchards are on it. A packing house must hold GMP certification from the Department of Agriculture and be on the equivalent list; there are close to 2,000 of those. Without both numbers the fruit cannot legally go.

Thirty thousand orchards. Two thousand packing houses.

The Department of Agriculture registers both, tests dry matter, inspects for pests and for compliance with the protocol agreed with China, and issues the phytosanitary certificate that lets the consignment cross. And it does almost all of that at the packing house.

Which means the grower’s fruit is examined, measured, classified and certified somewhere the grower is not.

Nobody is being accused of anything here and the design is not sinister. You cannot run a dry-matter test in thirty thousand orchards. Consolidating inspection at two thousand certified points is the only way the protocol with China could function at all. The grading has to happen somewhere, and the somewhere has to be licensed.

But notice what it does to the grower’s position. They do not set the price — that is the market. They do not set the standard — that is the protocol. And they do not apply the standard to their own fruit. They deliver, and a counterparty decides whether this load is the ฿135 pile or the ฿70 pile.

Which is the limit on something this site established earlier

Article 80 Money you can wear found that informal markets work when they have a product standard and a published price. Gold has both — 96.5 per cent purity and one national price revised through the day — and has served people without bank accounts reliably for generations. The underground lottery and social commerce have neither, and they hurt people.

Durian is the test case that shows what a standard and a published price are not sufficient for.

It has both. It also has registration at both ends, a bilateral protocol, laboratory testing and a state inspectorate. It is about as far from an informal market as a Thai agricultural product gets.

And the grower still carries the risk, because owning a standard is not the same as applying it. With gold, the shop and the customer can both see 96.5 per cent stamped on the chain, and the price is on a screen behind the counter. With durian, the measurement happens after the fruit has left, in a building the seller does not own, on equipment the seller cannot read.

So the article 80 Money you can wear finding needs a clause, the way article 92 The first toll added one to the universality finding. A product standard and a published price protect the weaker party only when the weaker party can verify the standard themselves. When the standard is applied by the counterparty, the published price tells the grower what they might have got. It does not tell them what they will get.

What follows from that

Nothing in this piece says the grading is dishonest, and there is no evidence offered here that it is. The point is structural and it holds even if every packing house in Thailand is scrupulous: when the classification is the thing that moves the money, whoever performs the classification holds the position, and the party on the other side of it is exposed by design.

It also explains why the quality push is landing where it is. China has been tightening residue limits, pest checks and traceability, and Thailand’s answer has been more inspection, more testing, more certification. Every one of those measures is applied at the packing house. Raising the standard raises the stakes of the classification — and the grower’s exposure to it rises with them.

The obvious counter is that a grower can shop around, and with two thousand certified packing houses that is not nothing. Whether it is enough is a question this article cannot answer, because no data was obtained on how many packing houses a typical orchard can actually reach inside the few days a durian stays saleable. That is the number that would settle it, and it does not appear to be published.

---

Common misconceptions

“Thai durian exports are collapsing.” Volume rose 9.4 per cent in 2025. The problem is that China’s market rose 20 per cent and Vietnam took most of the growth.

“Vietnam is cheaper because the fruit is worse.” The trade ministry’s own account attributes Vietnam’s advantage to shorter transport distance, lower logistics cost and faster transit, which allow a lower shelf price.

“Growers are getting ฿135 a kilo.” Grade AB is getting ฿135–140. The forecast average across the crop is near ฿90, below ฿100 for a second year.

“Export means dealing with China.” For almost every grower it means dealing with a certified packing house in Thailand. That is where the fruit is graded, tested and certified.

“Anyone can export durian to China.” The orchard must hold GAP certification and China must recognise it; the packing house must hold GMP certification from the Department of Agriculture; and the consignment needs a phytosanitary certificate.