People looking at a display of fresh dates during the opening of 4th Fresh Local Dates Festival at Souq Waqif, yesterday. Pic:Baher Amin/The Peninsula
The Ministry of Municipality and Environment and Souq Waqif opened yesterday the 4th Fresh Local Dates Festival 2019 with the participation of 85 local farms in a large air-conditioned tent at Souq Waqif.
The most famous local fresh dates including Khalas and Khanizi were offered yesterday at very attractive prices QR10 per kg. The dates are showcased in special boxes of 1-2kg.
The 12-day festival will be open from 4pm to 10pm until August 3. The initiative is part of a major programme of the Ministry to provide platforms to local farms to market their produce so they could get appropriate return for their investments and hard work.
“The Ministry of Municipality and Environment has set target to sell over 250 tonnes of fresh dates during the festival,” Adil Al Yafai, Deputy Director of Agricultural Affairs Department, also Deputy Head of Organising Committee of the Festival, said.
Al Yafai said that the Festival is expected to attract more customers compared to the previous festival where 205 tonnes of fresh dates were sold.
“The popular varieties of fresh local dates including Khalas, Al Shishi, Al Khanizi, Al Barhi, Al Irqi, Al Silji, Al Saqai, Nabt Saif, Al Lulu and Al Razizi will be offered during the festival,” said Al Yafai.
Director of Agricultural Research Department, Hamad Sakit Al Shammari, said that the increasing number of participating farms reflects the success of previous editions, noting that the role of department complement the role of the agriculture sector in providing food security in the State and finding solutions to the technical problems facing palm growing and date production.
He said that the Department is working on a project to increase number of palm trees in the country by providing best quality saplings of palm trees to farmers.
He said that the Department distributed over 30,000 saplings of palm trees to citizens during past five years since the beginning of the project.
“The Department produces about 15,000 saplings of palm trees in a year. Last year, we distributed 7,000 saplings to citizens and this year by December the number will be doubled,” said Al Shammari
Over 205 tonnes of fresh dates worth QR1.7m were sold out during the festival in 2018 which attracted about 54,000 visitors. Ali Ahmad Al Kaabi, owner of a local farm ‘Global Farm for Agricultural Supplies’ who is participating the Festival with large quantity of fresh dates lauded the Ministry for its initiatives to support the local farmers.
He said the festival like other marketing platform will encourage local farms to increase their produce. “I am participating in the festival with fresh dates which were harvested from the palm trees provided by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment six years ago at nominal prices,” said Al Kaabi.
