Pakistan is one of the largest producers and exporters of dates in the world. Date palms are grown in all four provinces on an area of about 90,000 hectares that yield more than 500,000 metric tons of fruit every year. The fruit is exported both fresh and dried.
Every year, the fruit is harvested between July and September. District Khairpur in Sindh province, the date capital of the country, starts buzzing with activity. Labor for fruit picking, processing, packing and transporting starts arriving from all over Sindh and even Balochistan and Punjab provinces. Work starts early morning and goes on till sunset.
Iqrar Ali Jatoi is a date farmer. He owns 1,500 date palms spread over an area of 40 acres in Therri, District Khairpur. He received most of these trees as his father’s legacy. Date farming is his primary source of income. The little time he has left from managing his farm is spent in growing wheat for his family.
Jatoi says that one tree can yield 40 to 100 kilograms of fruit in one year. Although dozens of different date cultivars are grown in Pakistan, Khairpur is known for the Aseel variety. The process starts with the planting of a sapling. A date palm starts bearing fruit after eight years of age and requires constant care in the early years. Some of his trees are older than fifty years. The older, taller trees bear more fruit than younger ones.
The fruit is collected unripe and then goes through a ripening process. First of all, individual pieces are separated. One group is chosen to be ripened and the other group is for drying. Then the fruit is washed, boiled and spread out in the sun. The length of time it spends in the sun depends whether it is meant for ripening or drying.
At the end of the ripening and drying process, the fruit is taken to the market where it is auctioned. The buyers offer a different price every day, based on the market conditions. The buyers then sell some of the fruit in the local market while the better part of it is exported.
A few weeks after harvesting, the trees need to be pruned and the dead leaves need to be removed. The trees are inspected for any sign of disease. Then they have to be pollinated manually so that they can bear fruit the next year. Each plant has to be inspected every few weeks to ensure that it is healthy.
Iqrar reports that climate change is having a greatly adverse effect on date production. Quoting the example of 2023, he mentioned that the monsoons started much earlier than usual, and about half the fruit got wasted.
Other than climate change, the date palm also suffers from occasional infections. This year, a never seen before infection has invaded the trees that kills them within a matter of days. According to Jatoi, at least twenty thousand trees have died within the Therri area.
About the author:
Jamil Akhtar is a writer and photographer based in Islamabad, Pakistan. He was born in 1977. He spent nearly two decades working in advertising industry as a copywriter and worked for some of the country’s biggest brands. He started working for himself in 2014 as a freelance creative consultant, writer and photographer.
He has done extensive documentary work all over Pakistan, including some of its harshest areas. He has covered a wide range of subjects from environment to gender. Some of his work for United Nations Development Program has found warm reception all over the world.
