The 6th Local Dates Festival with various dates variety from 80 farms across the country started at Al Ahmad Square, Souq Waqif yesterday.
The festival which has been hosted by the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (MME) will continue until July 30 and will be open from 4 pm to 10 pm daily.
The festival tent at Al Ahmad Square, extends over 3,600 square metres. This can uphold almost 720 people at once. Yousef Al Taher, one of the participants at the festival said that Souq Waqif is the best choice for the festival for being a “heritage place and one of Qatar’s historic landmarks.”
“The festival is a chance for farms to showcase their products and visitors to buy fresh dates as if it from palms directly,” he added.
It will also showcase MME’s marketing programme to improve these products and will encourage farms to use advanced technology. This will help stimulating the quality and quantity of the product.
The ministry has prefixed prices of dates in the festival in order to prevent consumer exploitation.
Moreover, the ministry also set certain requirements to maintain the quality.
For examble, the festival will not use unripened Rutab (fresh local dates). In addition to that, the ministry urges the participants to produce fresh and of high quality dates for the festival.
Al Ikhlas, Al Shishi, Al Khenaizi dates, and Al Barhi, Al Iraqi, Al Selaji, Al Sukkari, Al Saqi, Al Zaghioul, Nabat Seif, Al Lolo, Al Helail, Al Rzizi and Al Kabkab are the major Qatari dates available in the festival.
