Promoting Saudi Dates
Riyad Al-Khamis, Al-Riyadh

Although Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s major date producers, the Kingdom’s share in the world market remains very limited.

The Kingdom accounts for 19 percent of worldwide production, yet our dates find their way to very few world markets and to those only in limited quantities. Traditionally, dates have played a significant role in Saudi life; they serve as the population’s basic nourishment for a long time. Dates contain large amounts of sugar, mineral salts and a number of rare elements which the human body needs.

The Saudi economy needs to diversify away from its one “crop,” oil. And Saudi Arabia certainly does have high quality dates. But as this article, translated from the Arabic daily Al-Riyadh notes, date production and marketing are woefully underappreciated. Date farming, is still a small scale agricultural program, much unchanged from where it was 2,000 years ago. Mechanical irrigation and picking seem to be about the only technologies used.

Dates do make it to local markets. In fact, there are now several chains offering a wide variety of dates and date products scattered among the major cities. And dates make up a significant part of Saudi foreign food assistance–hundreds of tons are donated annually. But unlike their North African cousins, the Saudis have not really established international marketing schemes. Saudi dates are quite different than those from North Africa, but Americans are most familiar with the latter as the dates grown in California originated there.