Egypt was able to enter the Guinness Book of Records, with the largest date palm plantation in the world with an area of 132,000 square kilometers, surpassing Al-Rajhi farm in Saudi Arabia, which was also recorded in the encyclopedia.
The official court accredited by the Guinness Book of Records, Kenzi Emad El-Dafrawi, said in her speech that “Egypt broke the record for the largest date palm plantation in the world with an area of 132,000 square kilometers,” noting that Egypt was also granted a certificate to register “the largest water withdrawal basin in the world with an amount of water.” 245 thousand cubic meters.
Egypt occupies the first place in the world in the production of dates, as the volume of Egypt’s production annually reaches about 1.6 million tons, which represents about 18% of the total global production, which amounts to 9 million tons, and the first on the Arab level with about 23% of the Arab production of dates, but the volume of exports Egypt does not reflect its production capabilities, as it records 2.7% of its production.
The project aims to grow 2.5 million palm trees for varieties that are required abroad and have a high price value equivalent to 5 times the current price per ton in Egypt, including the Medjool dates and the Barhi dates, which are rare varieties in Egypt, as only 16% of Egypt’s production is semi-dry varieties and there is expansion. In cultivating the varieties required for export, including Al-Majdol and Al-Barhi.
Al-Rajhi farm in Saudi Arabia
As for the Awqaf Al-Rajhi farm in Al-Batin in the city of Buraidah, it was considered the largest farm for date palms in the world, before the emergence of the Egyptian farm, as it was registered in the Guinness Book of World Records in May 2005 as the largest palm farm in the world and it belongs to the famous Saudi businessman Sheikh Suleiman bin Abdulaziz Al-Rajhi.
The area of this farm is about 54 million square meters, or approximately 5466 hectares, equivalent to 13,014 acres (about a third of the Egyptian farm).
Al-Rajhi farm includes more than 250 thousand palm trees, the vast majority of them are fruitful, and the ages range from one year to more than 50 years, and of them about 48 thousand palm trees are completely organic.
This article was originally published by RT.
