DOHA: As the Third Local Dates Festival is set to start from July 19, the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) will launch “palm trees in homes competition” for the first time to promote local production of fruit.

The festival will continue till August 4 and expected to attract thousands of visitors.

“Together to support the national products, the Ministry for the first time will organize a “homes’ palm trees competition,” said the ministry on its official website.

The festival is aimed at preserving the cultural heritage and part of Qatar’s keenness to support and encourage local production. It also comes in the framework of encouraging farmers to pay attention to the quality of dates and raise awareness among them on modern agriculture methods and care of palm trees.

Such annual events is an occasion to exchange of technical expertise among farmers. “This year the festival is characterised by increasing number of farms wishing to participate and the quantity of fresh dates offered for sale is expected to be more. Also the exhibition’s area will be bigger than that of previous years. The exhibition will be open to visitors from 4pm to 10pm,” said the Ministry.

The stalls participating in the festival will offer fresh dates at low prices and most popular varieties of dates such as Khalas, Khanizi, Shishi, Barhi and Arzizas among others will be available.

The event witnesses an increase in the number of participation of farms every year compared to previous years. In 2016, only 18 farms participated in the event, while last year (2017) there were 57 farms participating in it and this year the number is expected to be more.

The Ministry said that the total sale of fresh dates during the previous festival was about 175 tonnes, with a market value of about QR1.3m.

The Ministry said that the total number of farms registered in the State of Qatar is 1,310, of which 916 are active farms, most of them grow palm trees and produce different types of dates.

The total cultivated area of palm trees is about 2,350 hectares, and the total production of dates is about 30 thousand tonnes per year. The total number of palm trees within the farms is more than 500 thousand palm trees, and the self-sufficiency of dates is 87 percent.

“In collaboration with Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry will send samples to laboratory to check that the dates offered at the festival are free of residues of chemical pesticides or not,” noted the Ministry.

To encourage people to plant the palm trees seedlings on their own, the Agricultural Affairs Department at 2016 Dates Festival, had offered seedlings to people at low prices. One seedling is sold for QR85 while it costs in the market between QR230 and QR250. Every citizen was allowed to purchase only maximum five seedlings.

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