Best date contest continues in Liwa

Liwa: Thousands of visitors continue to flock to the sixth season of Liwa Date Festival taking place in Al Gharbia (the western region).

The annual festival organised by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (Adach) is dedicated to promote the UAE's authentic heritage and celebrate dates harvest in appreciation to the blessed palm tree.

The festival is held under the patronage of Shaikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs. The festival will continue until July 26 with number of events such as traditional performance and traditional handicraft in addition to the best bates competition.

On Wednesday the judging committee finished examining the farms of participants in the category of "Khalas" and "Bumaan" dates in the competition.

Around 670 date producers participated in the category of "Khalas" and 120 participated in the category of "Bumaan". Winners were to be announced yesterday evening.

The committee has started receiving the name of participants in the category of "Alfard".

"Farmers presented the best quality date they have this year in the competition. They worked hard to improve the quality of their fruits to keep up with the high standards of the competition. This is another achievement of the competition that farmers now are following the latest technique and agriculture methods to nurture palm trees and produce better dates," said Mubarak Al Mansouri, head of the judging committee.

At the entrance of the festival's tents, members of the hospitality committee welcome the visitors with date fruits as a symbolic message of warmness and greetings.

"We are encouraging people to visit this unique event and take part in the multi-cultural activities; our gift to them is just a sample test of UAE authentic traditions," said Ahmad Abdullah Al Hamadi, from the hospitality committee.

"We intend to distribute 6,000 boxes during the festival this year," he added.