His Highness Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister of Presidential Affairs and the Chairman of Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority, has inaugurated on Monday, November 26th, 2012, the Sixth UAE International Festival for Palm Trees and Dates at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Center in Abu Dhabi, in the presence of His Excellency Dr. Rashid Ahmed Bin Fahad, the Minister of Environment and Water.
The exhibition runs until December 1st, 2012. The Ministry of Environment and Water participates in the festival by a pavilion that includes a display of the ministry's achievements in the field of palm trees care, such as the national campaign to combat the palm weevil and the efforts exerted to combat and contain this scourge, which is considered as one of the most spread pests infecting palm trees. A documentary about the experience of the ministry in the management and implementation of this campaign will be displayed, as well as displaying information on the initiative (Nakheelna) that was launched by the ministry in cooperation with the General Secretariat of the Council of Ministers within the framework of federal government initiatives for the development of customer service. The initiative (Nakheelna), is considered as the second phase of the national campaign to combat palm weevil that aims to control palm tree pests that affect the quality and quantity of production, that include Aldobas, Alhumera, diggers and the red palm weevil.
This initiative comes from the ministry's concern with maintaining the palm trees and raising domestic production rates of dates which is considered as an element of food security in the country.During the exhibition, the Ministry of Environment and Water will display the website for the Electronic Agricultural Guide, which contains important information in the field of palm trees care and related scientific research. In addition, publications on special palm trees varieties will be provided, as well as how to care for a palm tree, and that includes all palm trees varieties with high quality production in the UAE. Also, the ministry will distribute a poster with information for 80 different kinds of palm trees, a special bulletin on creating modern palm tree farms, the annual program for the tree services in terms of shedding, vaccination, automated pollination, individualization, and storing dates by frosting, as well as distributing a CD-ROM regarding palm trees issues.
His Excellency Engineer Saif Al-Shara’, the Assistant Undersecretary for Agricultural and Livestock Affairs, said that “the ministry's participation in this international event is considered very important for our leadership pays a great attention to this blessed tree, and to shed the light on the ministry's efforts in promoting and encouraging the development of palm plantations in the country, to achieve the strategic objective of the ministry in raising food security rates through increasing local agricultural production”. The ministry’s work team toured around the exhibition to take a look at other pavilions and the various date products.
It is worth mentioning that the Sixth UAE International Festival for Palm Trees and Dates is a unique international festival, because it is opens its doors to a wide community of dates enthusiasts, and attracts customers, buyers, traders and manufacturers of date at one special global venue. The festival will feature many events for its visitors, such as the palm theater, palm tree climbing, dates cuisine performed by renowned chefs, dates tasting oasis, childcare section contests and drawing, photography competition, the heritage village of palm trees and its derivatives, and conducting workshops on marketing dates and palm trees care.
It is expected that more than 20 thousand people will visit the festival. More than 200 foreign, Arab and leading local companies specialize in dates trading and its derivatives, and packaging will participate in the event, as well as the participation of 7 international pavilions, and about 20 different countries from all around the world. The number of date varieties that would be displayed at the festival will be more than 500 kinds and varieties.