Date markets bloom during Ramadan in the Kurdistan Region

Variety 11:58 AM - 2021-04-19

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With the arrival of the holy month of Ramadan, demand increases on all foods, especially dates, as people eat large amounts of date in Ramadan and the palm market is growing.

 

Dates are pretty popular during the holy month of Ramadan as Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset and usually break their fast with dates to follow the religious teachings of Prophet Muhammad, who is quoted as saying: "When one of you is fasting, he should break his fast with dates; but if he cannot get any, then (he should break his fast) with water, for water is purifying."

 

Date sellers in Kurdistan Region say that this year's date markets is not as good as before due to the coronavirus crisis, unlike previous years and people are not visiting them much.

 

What makes Kurdistan region's date markets different this year is that many of the dates that have been imported from southern and central Iraq.

 

Iraq once produced three-quarters of the world’s dates but now accounts for just 5 percent after it switched its economic focus to oil and after decades of conflict devastated its farms.

 

The number of palm trees in Iraq, according to statistics conducted in the seventies, amounted to about 50 million palm trees, but the wars and difficult conditions and economic blockade in the nineties of the last century caused the number to fall to about 30 million palm trees according to an approximate census conducted in 2002, and the number of palm continued to decrease until it has reached only 16 million palm trees nationwide, according to the 2014 census.

 

 

 

PUKmedia