(MENAFN- The Peninsula) By Sidi Mohamed / The Peninsula
The Ministry of Municipality and Environment will launch a ten-day festival of fresh dates at Souq Waqif on July 27 that will showcase dates at cheaper rates to visitors.
Among the most important varieties of fresh dates that will be available in the festival are Khalas, Khanizi, Barhi, and Shishi.
About 57 local date palm farms will offer a variety of fresh dates at the festival. This festival is being organised to support and encourage local products and to achieve food security.
'This festival will be different compared to previous edition because more local date palm farms are participating in it and the prices will be competitive offering opportunity to visitors to buy dates at cheaper rate, source at the ministry told The Peninsula.'Also seeds will be available at a discounted price to help them to plant palm trees, he added.
The event will be organised by Agricultural Affaris Department at the Ministry in collaboration with Souq Waqif management.
Last year the total production of dates was around 28,877 tonnes, which was able to meet 81 percent of local demand. The remaining is imported from Oman and other countries.
There are 1,307 registered farms in the country, out of which ‘active' farms producing dates are 902, the Ministry said on its official Twitter account.
The Ministry is keen to develop agricultural sector which include palm trees and also to support farmers so that local dates can compete with international dates.
The organising committee has specified norms for participating farms. A team from Agricultural Affairs Department has sent a sample of dates to ministry of public health laboratory to ensure that these fresh dates are safe from diseases .
The Agricultural Affairs Department and the Agricultural Research Department, in addition to Mahaseel Company and Qatfa Company are participating in this festival.
The festival aims to know people about the varieties of dates and encourage people to invest in this sector to increase the local products of palm dates.
During the festival, the Ministry will provide visitors all information related to services which the Mnistry provides in this regard.
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