Ninth International Dates Festival Opens in Siwa Oasis

The ninth International Dates Festival opened in Siwa Oasis, bringing together growers, producers and other participants from across Egypt’s date industry.

This year’s programme focuses on how dates move from cultivation through processing and into local and international markets, with particular attention to production and exports.

Egypt is currently the world’s largest producer of dates, with annual output exceeding 1.8 million tonnes and accounting for around 19% of global production, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). The crop is grown across the Nile Valley, Delta and Western Desert oases, supporting both rural livelihoods and a growing processing industry.

Siwa itself has a long relationship with date cultivation. Its agricultural system, which combines date palms with crops including olives and alfalfa, was designated a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System by the FAO in 2016.

Recent work on Egypt’s date sector has increasingly focused on what happens after harvest as well as production itself. The FAO and Egyptian agricultural bodies have been working on improving post-harvest handling, processing, quality and market readiness as the country looks to extract more value from its position as the world’s biggest producer.