Thai police launch night patrols to protect durian farms

Workers arrange harvested durians at a processing plant in Chanthaburi province, Thailand (Photo: THX).

The nightly patrols to ensure security at durian farms were launched after the theft of 1 million baht ($29,000) at a farm in Trat province, which borders Cambodia.

A police station in the provincial capital district proposed the campaign, believed to be the first of its kind in the country, after durian farmers repeatedly complained of thieves breaking into their farms at night and stealing ripe fruits, as the fruit becomes increasingly popular and valuable.

Chief Inspector Ariyachai Thima, who announced the security measure at a farm where a recent theft occurred, said growers had suffered several million baht in losses.

He said police would increase surveillance of farms that have joined the security project, especially at night, when gangs of thieves often operate.

Under the initiative, launched in collaboration with farmers, police will patrol around durian farms from 6 p.m. to dawn the next day, until all durians in the garden are harvested.

Inspector General Ariyachai hopes the increased patrols will ease the worries of farmers, who are already struggling with other crop-damaging problems such as drought.

Thailand is the world's largest durian grower, exporting about 100 billion baht ($2.9 billion) of the valuable fruit to markets such as China and South Korea in 2021.

Thai durian is prized in China for its creamy, custard-like taste, and the country imported more than 875,000 tonnes of the fruit from Thailand in 2021.

According to the Office of Agricultural Economics , the booming demand has caused the area of ​​agricultural land in Thailand converted to durian cultivation to increase from nearly 100,000 hectares in 2012 to more than 150,000 hectares in 2019.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-gioi/canh-sat-thai-lan-mo-chien-dich-tuan-tra-dem-bao-ve-trang-trai-sau-rieng-20230315165614606.htm