LANDBOUKUNDIG | AGRICULTURAL
Niche market
It’s a date
Cultivation of date palm tree
The cultivation of the date palm tree, most popular in the Middle East, is a niche market
South African farmers should consider worth exploring.
By Kefiloe Manthata
Senwes Graduate
T
he highly nutritious, decadent
fruit, famed for being a great
source of energy and unrefined
sugar, is very suitable for the
South African dry climate conditions.
Dates are the fruit of a desert palm tree.
There are 220 kinds of dates, but only
about 20 of these are commercially via-
ble. Medjool dates are especially popular
in South Africa. These are the dates with
the potential to be the most profitable.
Medjool dates are large, soft, very sweet
and more labour-intensive to grow and
harvest. It is one of the few crops that
grows in the desert.
Date palms have been described as
the “tree of life.” And the fruit is hailed as
a “complete fruit” medically as it also con-
20
tains protein, lipids, carbohydrates and is
a high source of fibre.
So far, very few producers cultivate
dates commercially in South Africa.
Among them is Pieter Karstens of the
Karstens Group, who farm dates on a sce-
nic piece of land named Klein Pella, 270
km from Upington in the Northern Cape.
According to Karstens, it was the pre-
vious owner of the farm who brought the
date seed over to Klein Pella. “When we
took over the farm, I had no idea of the
potentia