Heatwave hammers Thailand's stinky but lucrative durian farms
The Peninsula
Chanthaburi, Thailand: Clambering hand over hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian labourer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree befor...
Chanthaburi, Thailand: Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian labourer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague's waiting arms some 15 metres (50 feet) below.
Among Thailand's most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent "king of fruits" is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years.
But a vicious heatwave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiralling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry.
"This year is a crisis," durian farmer Busaba Nakpipat told AFP bluntly.