Big leap in date production

The annual date harvest in the UAE has increased by more than 53-fold since 1961, an international conference on date-palm culture in the UAE was told yesterday.

Delivering a lecture on the Date Palm Culture in the United Arab Emirates: Present Situation and Future Potential, Dr Abdelouahhab Zaid of the UAE University said the annual production of the desert fruit jumped from less than 6,000 metric tonnes (MT) in 1961 to 318,000 MT last year, an increase of about 5,200 per cent.

Dr Zaid, chief technical advisor at the Date Palm Research and Development Programme at the UAE University and a representative of UNDP in the UAE, delivered his lecture at the inaugural session of the 'International Date Palm Forum: Date Palm Culture in the UAE'.

Attended by more than 20 local, regional and international experts and hosted by the Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), the conference was opened by Dr Ali Ghanem Al Arai, Deputy Director for Community Services and Head of the Conference Department at the Centre, on behalf of Dr Jamal Al Suwaidi, Director of the ECSSR.

The conference ends tomorrow.

The speakers include experts from the GCC and Arab countries, Britain, France, Germany and Italy.

Dr Zaid said that the UAE ranks seventh as a major date-producing country, producing six per cent of the world production.

"Indeed, the UAE date harvest area has increased about 11,000 per cent between 1961 and 2001, while the world average increase (for 34 date-producing countries) was only about 295 per cent," he told the conference.

Dr Zaid added that date imports have consequently dropped from 100,000 MT in 1989 to 12,000 MT in 1994. The decline in imports, he explained, correlates with an increase in the production of 100,000 MT during the same period.

"Date exports jumped from zero in 1971 to over 50,000 MT in 1998, with a value of $15 million," he said.

Dr Zaid also referred to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) agristate-database for last year and said that the UAE date harvest area has increased from less than 600 hectares in 1961 to 62,000 in 2001, constituting 15 per cent of the total cultivated land (about 200,000 hectares).

Dr Al Suwaidi, in his inaugural speech, read by Dr Al Arai, said this conference is a unique event where a variety of topics and an international panel of speakers combine to provide a virtually complete review of all aspects of date palm culture.

Dr Al Suwaidi said: "Holding this important event is another step in the ongoing implementation of the wise instructions of President His Highness Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who has continuously stressed the importance of sustaining a sound environment and has given particular attention to the cultivation and preservation of date palm trees."

"The forum will discuss the vital role of date palms in enriching the social life and environment of the Arabian Gulf," he said, adding that the conference will also explore the potential for improving the cultivation, productivity and market value of dates, as well as developing mutual cooperation between producer countries and regional and international organisations.

In his keynote speech, Hama Arba Diallo, the Executive Secretary of the Germany-based United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), said date palm cultivation plays a vital role in the fight against desertification.

He said that the date palm is one of the most adaptable trees in the world, requiring minimum water and able to withstand hot days and cold nights.

Diallo added it also has a high tolerance to soil and water salinity. Due to its resilience and adaptability, it has even become a national symbol for some of the Gulf countries that also constitute core countries of the UNCCD.

"The idea of an Arabia without the date palm is hard to imagine." Date palm agriculture has a high potential for success in dry land farming, also because dates can be stored for long periods and transported easily to distant markets.

Referring to fighting desertification, Diallo said the UNCCD believes that the Arab countries can play a proactive role in the fight against desertification.

"We would like to invite participants to explore the possibilities to develop a range of policy initiatives, which aim at promoting Arab country expertise in date palm cultivation in developing countries. Such initiatives would constitute a model of South-South cooperation in the context of the UNCCD's implementation."

Rashid Mohammed Khalfan Al Shariqi, Undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries was among the guests attending the conference and touring the exhibition.