South Africa: Major investment in dates production

South African producer ZZ2, better known for their tomatoes and more recently avocado production, have started a joint venture with two other companies to produce Medjool dates in the Orange River region of Namibia, the company currently has planted 80 Ha.

There are plans to expand this area soon, but according to Clive Garrett from the company it is not that simple, "Dates take a long time to come into production so it is a big investment, also good propagation material is very hard to come by. The trees which are producing are four years old with the youngest being newly planted."

There are very few places in the world where you can grow dates successfully explains Clive, they need extreme temperatures and plenty of water and Namibia has the perfect conditions of extreme heat, no rain but a good water supply from the Orange river and no risk of frost.

"Other producing countries are Israel, Jordan and California in the United States which are all in the Northern Hemisphere and counter season to Africa, also for the next few years the Namibia area will be in season during Ramadan," said Clive.

Dates can also be stored for six months by freezing them to -25 and they also have a very long shelflife.

"At the moment we don't have the coldroom capacity to supply the markets year round but as soon as our production increases we will start to upgrade our infrastructure," said Clive. "The main export will be to Europe at this stage and so far response has been phenomenal, we have even had people wanting to buy the whole crop."