Sudanese Dates Open New Horizons
07 November, 2016KHARTOUM (Sudanow.info.sd) - The recent Ninth Palm & Dates Festival has represented a qualitative move in dates packing, packaging and dates display for sale.
The Festival has also revealed the introduction of different new industries and innovations based on palms and dates. The Festival audiences have seen furniture and fodder produced from palm branches and leaves, respectively, and coffee and perfumes made from date seeds.
Previously dates were eaten raw or processed into drinks. Palm timber and branches were used in roofing and its fibers in making ropes.
Juma’a al-Banna, who manufactures furniture from palm branches singled out the branches of the palm species ‘’ the gondaila and the barhi’’ as most suitable for making furniture, thanks to their strength. He said all his work is done manually without the help of electric machines. In his workshop, Banna produces sets of chairs, tables, beds and desks for children to study on. “Our furniture is 100% strong and is guaranteed for 20 years,’’ he said.
Banna said suitable palm branches are available in adequate supply during the winter season and tend to become less in the other seasons.
Abulfaid Mukhtar Hassan, owner of the confectionary shop ‘’samboosat baladna’’ (candy of our homeland), said the Festival has helped a great deal in the marketing of his product, as the visitors rushed to buy it. He said foreigners in particular had enjoyed the taste of his candy.” Our product is a complete meal all by itself. It is a date dessert made from wheat flour, animal fat and dates, is free from any food preservatives and is very rich in vitamins,’’ said Banna.
“Our aim is to spotlight and propagate popular meals, put a modern touch on them and encourage children to eat healthy and nourishing food and prop up the general tendency to encourage dates production and industries,’’ he said.
Muna Ahmad, a businesswoman specialized in making female perfumes, said she had managed to process perfumes from palm branches. She said she also processed the lovely female khumra perfume from date seeds that won appreciation of the Festival visitors.
The Bittimoda date packing plant has managed to process animal fodder from the natural components of dates. Plant manager Mua’awya Ali Sulaiman said his date fodder was found to be of high nutrition value for meat producing livestock.
Sulaiman also said his plant had managed to process coffee from date seeds which was hailed as very useful by diabetics and patients suffering blood pressure, loss of balance and gout.
He said they were planning a scientific study to verify this coffee’s medical value for such patients.
The festival organizer, the Sudanese Palm Care and Cultivation Society, said the festival was aimed at highlighting wide-scale food processing from dates, as dates, fresh or dry, are known for their high calories and high content of vitamins (particularly B3 and B6) and minerals, particularly potassium, magnesium and copper addition to fibre.
Therefore dates is useful for promoting general health and reducing risks of many diseases including colon cancer, hemorrhoids, cardiovascular, stroke, Alzheimer and a number of inflammation-related diseases. It is also helpful for reducing high blood pressure and guarding pregnant women health, easing labour during birth and other benefits.
Sudan has as early as 1956 started to invest in dates industry with the establishment of the Krima Dates Packing Plant, Northern State (home of date production). The plant had used to export its produce to the United Kingdom.
Sudan’s date production isn’t helped with chemical fertilizers. Biological manure is used, instead. The palms are irrigated by river water from the Nile.
Some 15 international dates species have been successfully introduced to Sudan. A lot of date producers had participated in date exhibitions in China, Egypt, U.A.E, Italy and other countries that won appreciation.
Scientific research was present in the Festival. Dr. Maryam Ibn Auf al-Hassan of the Agricultural Research Corporation in the town of Meroe said they were working on date seed families, studying the physical and chemical properties of the species that best suit the taste of foreign and local consumers. “I have conducted a field survey in Meroe where analysis revealed the existence of lots of excellent species of soft, semi-soft and hard dates. But the majority of these species have no offshoots to re-plant or samples to be taken from. Also there is no tissue culture lab that can produce hundreds of seedlings from a single seedling,’’ she said
Dr. Maryam has, however, disclosed that Zadna Company has now embarked on the construction of a tissue culture lab that can help a great deal in producing high quality and internationally competitive dates.
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