A group of nutrition scientists and experts who participated in a dates workshop as part of the super fruit seminar held in the Italian capital Rome confirmed the health benefits of dates, which are grown in more than 40 countries around the world, and their important role in ensuring food security, the Saudi Press Agency reported. They strongly recommended classifying dates as a super fruit. Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Dr. Muhammad Al-Ghamdi said a large number of representatives of FAO member states, including Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Germany, participated in the workshop. For her part, Deputy Director-General for Climate and Natural Resources Dr. Maria Helena Semedo thanked the Kingdom for organizing the workshop on dates, within the framework of the search for a wide-scale, affordable and edible foodstuff with a high nutritional value and to ensure food security based on the notion of a "super fruit". She said the growing of date palms in the Kingdom dated back to 6000 years. She added: "Despite the growing of date palms having originated in the Middle East, today all the continents of the world either produce or consume dates." Date is an exceptional fruit due to its nutritional value and its status as a healthy food. The date market has a value of $1.2 billion annually, she said. Dr. Semedo valued the step as a starting point for more discussions on the sustainability of the dates sector and developing it to serve the product and the consumer. Undersecretary of the Ministry of the Environment, Agriculture and Water Muhammad Al-Ayyadah said there were over 200 million date palms in the world, producing some 8 million tons of dates annually. "This necessitates making the optimum benefit from this important resource, which is attracting more customers every year especially in the advanced countries," he said, adding that the annual growth rate is 15 percent in terms of value and 9 percent in terms of market volume. "This is due to increasing awareness on the nutritional value of dates," the official said. Al-Ayyadah added that the workshop came as the crowning of work that began 11 months earlier in partnership with several organizations and researchers worldwide to classify dates as a super fruit. Meanwhile, Assistant Director General of FAO for the Agricultural Sector and Consumer Protection Dr. Abubakr Tijani said the holding of the workshop helped highlight how dates could be a contributing factor to ensuring nutrition and food security, especially in the arid regions of the world, and to achieving the UN goal of eradicating hunger and starvation. — SPA
