By Rafiq Vayani
ABU DHABI: Agthia Group PJSC, a leading regional food and beverages company, announced that the 2021 date marketing season for Al Foah, the world’s largest date receiving and processing business, would run from 7 August to 28 October, with prices applied as per the date marketing policy approved for seasons 2018 through 2022. The pricing policy is aimed at improving farmer income and ensuring commercial revenue sustainability through encouraging them to promote date quality for highly-valued varieties and thereby making the UAE’s date among the most competitive and top quality worldwide.
The Group further revealed that Al Foah’s centres are prepared to welcome around 17,000 farmers from across the UAE and provide state-of-the-art equipment and mechanisms to procure, sort and grade dates. In the 2020 season, Al Foah’s centres processed more than 100,000 tonnes of dates from all over the UAE, topped by the Khalas variety and the highly-valued Fard.
Dates Factory 
Dates Factory
Alan Smith, Chief Executive Officer of Agthia Group, said: “We look forward to receiving strong volumes during this dates marketing season. The advanced facilities at our centres clubbed with the value-added services we provide will secure the best returns on investment and guaranteed income for farmers. We are determined to extend our high-tech, sustainable dates sourcing approach to more farmers across the country as they open the doors to robust markets offering solid added value.”
To enable a successful and safe experience for all attendees, preventive measures have been set to be followed at all Al Foah’s centres, including, but not limited to, providing a 7-day valid negative PCR test result on the Al Hosn application. These procedures are in line with the precautionary measures adopted by the UAE to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, which contributed to the continuity of services and businesses in the vital sectors of the state, including the date palm sector.
Al Foah also offers a suite of services to make sure that farmers are served easily and safely through several communication channels such as the farmers’ electronic portal, Al Foah application, toll-free number 8005551, SMS messages, social media and other media. Farmers will be able to use the portal to update relevant data and renew date supply agreements, among others as well.
