On Monday, the activities of the Fourth International Festival of Dates, hosted by Jordan, kicked off.

The sector of Jordanian date cultivation and production, especially Medjool dates, is witnessing significant development in the Jordan Valley.

The annual production quantities of Jordanian dates amounted to about 27 thousand tons annually of all varieties, including 15 thousand tons of Medjool dates, which includes 14% of the global production of this variety, according to a previous statement by the Minister of Agriculture Khaled Hanifat.

Hanifat explained that the interest and expansion in palm cultivation as an economic investment began in the nineties of the last century, and the cultivated areas increased rapidly, especially after the year 2000, as the area cultivated with palm trees in Jordan for the year 2021 is more than 45 thousand dunums, most of which are of the unknown and Barhi varieties. The number of fruitful date palms in the Kingdom exceeded 650,000 trees, with an annual growth rate of 8-10%, distributed along the Jordan Valley, Aqaba and Ghor Al-Safi in the south and east of the Kingdom and in the Azraq region. It is expected that the total areas will reach nearly five thousand hectares until 2030, with a production of up to 50 thousand tons, with an estimated value of $150 million.

(The kingdom)