Hundreds visit Liwa Date Festival
Farmer of 106.5kg date palm branch takes home the first of 233 prizes
Sporting a new look, the 13th Liwa Date Festival opened its doors on Wednesday to hundreds of visitors.
The 34,000-square-metre festival space is a free-flowing area from the traditional market at one end to the entertainment and award ceremony stage at the other. In between, several private and government companies operating in the fields of dates, agriculture, heritage and environment are exhibiting their products, handicrafts, services and artistry. At the heart of it all, is the Best Dates competition arena where, over the next 10 days, some 6,000 baskets of dates are expected to be judged for their taste, size, look, colour and, of course, health.
It all started with Etheg and Dabbas, the first two date categories to compete. Behind closed doors, local farmers were bringing basket after basket of Dabbas dates and trolley after trolley of freshly cut massive branches of dates, known as Etheg in Arabic.
The top 15 Etheg winners were revealed at 8pm on the first day of the festival. All 30 branches of dates submitted to the Etheg competition were weighed and the farmer who brought the heaviest of them took home the title. A 106.5-kilogram Etheg of Shahal variety was crowned the winner.
As in previous years, the UAE’s most popular varieties of dates will be part of the Best Dates competitions, including Khallas, Farth, Kunaizi, Bou Maan and Shishi. Farms from all over the UAE may enter the competitions.
“Most of the 233 prizes sharing a total of Dh5.2 million are for the Best Dates categories of the competition, awarding up to 15 of the best entries in each category,” said Obaid Khalfan Al Mazroui, director of Liwa Date Festival.