Date Palm Culture in UAE

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), proclaimed on the 2nd December 1971, is set up of seven Emirates with Abu Dhabi the capital of the State. UAE, with a total land area of 83,600 km² (including approximately 200 islands) is inhabited by 2.443 million.

Climatically, the country is divided into two ecological zones which greatly influence the agricultural production: These are the coastal region with hot and humid summers and warm winters, and the inland region which is more dryer.

The potentialities of a commercial date production industry in UAE were realised many years ago. This fact is evidenced by the recent planting of several million date trees to proudly reach the level of above 40 million date palm tress. (UAE News Agency; Al Khaleej No. 7763 of 20/08/2000).

The annual date production in UAE has jumped from less than 8,000 metric tonnes (MT) in 1971 to more than 240,000 MT in 1995, an increase of about 30 fold. The date fruit import had consequently dropped from 100,000 MT (1989) to 12,000 MT (1994). The decline corresponds with an increase in the country’s production of 100,000 MT over the same period. The export of dates had also jumped from zero (0) in 1971 to above 50,000 MT in 1998 with a value of US$ 15 million. The country exports its dates to India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan.

According to FAO Agristat-Database (1997), the UAE date harvested area has increased from less than 60 hectares (ha) in 1971 to 31,005 ha in 1996. This increase in superficy is about 48 times and allowed the country to be internationally classified as the Seventh major producing country with six percent of the world date production. This date superficy constitutes 15% of the total cultivated land (about 200,000 ha).

The actual date tree population as mentioned above is about 40 millions of which 8.5 in AL-AIN region. The gene pool is large and composes about 120 date varieties. New introductions from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran and Oman included Khallas, AbouMaan, Hallawi, Khissab, Khenezi, Nabut Saif, Jabiri, Hillali, Lulu, Chichi, Khadraoui, Sakii, Sultana and Barhi varieties.

The Red Palm Weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Olive., is considered a major pest of the date palm in the Middle East where it causes severe damage. During a period of 5 years, the RPW infected trees in the UAE jumped from 1,3000 (1990) to 44,000 date palms (1995). This pest infestation is annually doubling with a rate of 2.02 and constitues a threat to the date industry in the country, as well as to the whole region.