• Home

Experts to discuss palm trees

ABU DHABI — The 3rd International Conference on palm trees in the UAE will be held from February 19-21 under the auspices of Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Education, according to Kyan Jaff, the regional representative of Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in the UAE.

Jaff said that VIPs would participate in the conference.

Jack Diouf, General Director of FAO, has been invited to inaugurate the conference in addition to GCC ministers of agriculture and a number of experts and researchers who have vast experience in palm trees, he said.

Many issues will be discussed regarding propagating the species of palm trees and ways of confronting pests which infect the trees and how to plant them, he added. He stressed the conference will be a good chance to gather topographical information needed for planting the date palm.

Marketing experts, businessmen and the big firms will also participate in the conference.

The conference will be held under the supervision of the International Coordination Council for palm trees.

"The size of the date palm gardens in the UAE increased 48 folds during the last 25 years," according to FAO.

Production of dates by the UAE reached 6 per cent of the total production of world production.

• UAE