File photo. Photo credit: Abdul Basit/ The Peninsula
The Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) has projected the dates production for this year to reach 27,000 tonnes, achieving a 76 percent rate of self–sufficiency.
MME added that Qatar imports approximately 10,000 tonnes of dates annually. In contrast, Qatar exports multiple varieties dates through Hassad Food Company with its subsidiary Nafco, which produces dozens of different dates.
The Ministry has urged people to know the types of Qatari dates by visiting the 6th annual Local Dates Festival at Souq Waqif, continuing until July 30. It is from 4pm to 10pm.
Regarding the number of palms in Qatar, MME said that Qatar’s palm tree reserve is estimated at 650,000 to 700,000 trees spanning 2.2 hectares. “Roughly 17 percent of Qatar’s agricultural lands (approximately 13,000 hectares) house palm trees,” MME said yesterday on its Twitter account.
For the local dates festival, the MME emphasised it was held to promote local Qatari agricultural products, further using marketing to improve agricultural products and incentivizing farms to use advanced agriculture technology to raise the quantity and quality of production.
The two-week Festival is being organised by the MME with the participation of 82 local farms.
The fresh local dates offered in the Festival are at affordable prices starting from QR7 and QR8 per KG. They include Khalas, Al Shishi, Al Khanizi, among others.
