Under the patronage of the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Saeb Khreisat, the Jordan Dates Association (JODA) organized a special celebration yesterday, Tuesday, to mark the fourth consecutive Jordanian Date Harvest Day. The celebration took place at the Agricultural Engineers Association’s station in the Karameh area of the Jordan Valley, where palm cultivation is concentrated.
The celebration was attended by a number of palm farmers and representatives of official bodies. This annual event has become a national platform to celebrate the year-long efforts of farmers, who have worked tirelessly to produce a distinctive crop that has become a benchmark in global markets.
Jordanian date production this year is estimated at approximately 36,000 tons of the finest date varieties, most notably the world-famous Mejhoul date, along with the Barhi variety and a number of other varieties. A special exhibition was held on the sidelines of the festival, featuring samples of this season’s production, a living testament to the quality of Jordanian dates, which are witnessing increasing global demand due to their distinctiveness and quality.
The area planted with palm trees in the Kingdom has exceeded 50,000 dunams, while the number of palm trees is approaching one million. Jordan’s production is expected to reach more than 50,000 tons in the next few years. Jordan also exports more than 65% of its date production to more than 55 countries around the world.
The Jordanian date sector provides more than 11,000 job opportunities, most of which are for women working in date workshops that employ the latest global technologies in packaging and marketing operations. This makes this sector an important economic lever for the national economy and the agricultural sector.
The festival honored several figures who support the Jordanian date sector as honorary members of the association in recognition of their efforts in enhancing the status of this national product, which has become a leading player on the global market map.
