Ministry of Environment and Water educates farmers on modern methods of preserving quality of dates

The Ministry of Environment and Water is continuously strengthening its efforts to advance the country’s agriculture sector in line with its strategic objective of promoting food safety and sustainability of the local agricultural production. Cultivating crops, such as palm trees, that can withstand the country’s arid climate is among the Ministry’s long-standing initiatives to achieve its goals. At present, the UAE is considered as one of the leading countries in terms of palm cultivation as a result of the strong support of the country’s wise leaders including the late H.H. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. To date, more than 40 million palms are available across the UAE.

The Ministry conducted several studies and researches on the efficiency of different dates drying methods to increase its contribution to food security; and to ensure that local consumers and global markets get the best quality without losing its nutrients. The process of drying dates is essential to: maintain its quality, sustain the dates local production and to reduce the losses; especially since most of the local cultivated varieties are classified as semi-dried dates. Given this, postharvest specialists have the responsibility to determine the suitable methods to maintain the dates production quality and to reduce the losses.

Engineer Fatima Al Kalbani, Acting Director, Plant Health and Development Department, emphasized that the role of using greenhouses to dry dates which would help to protect the its color, cleanliness and nutritional value. Additionally, using greenhouses speed up the drying process which results in higher financial returns for farmers. The drying process involves two phases: first, while they ripen, the fruits are washed and covered with nets to keep them dry and clean. The nets also protect the fruits from birds, rodents and dusts.

All ripe fruits are then harvested and placed in ‘trays,’ which are then re-dried either for sun drying — one of the oldest methods for drying fruits – or specialized shelves in greenhouses which are designed to use hot air to increase the temperature.  An electrical incubator dryer  can also be utilized to make dried dates. The heat-producing equipment requires a temperature ranging from 35c for variety Deglet Noor and 46c for other varieties like Maktoomi and Khlas, but if the temperature is not suitable then the some undesired characterestics will appear such as dark color of the fruit and the separation of the fruit crust.

To clean the dried dates, Al Kalbani gave the following pointers:

• Dried dates should be washed again using a water squirt gun and then to be dried on the drying bench.
• Clean the dated with wet towel or hot air condensed.
• To give the dates a better look and prevent them from sticking to each other add a layer of wax to the fruit surface, vegetable oil or molasses.