Labor shortage endangers date crop in Madinah

The July 3 amnesty deadline, decreed by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah for illegal expatriate workers to normalize their work status or leave the Kingdom, is set to have widespread ramifications on several industries, including the labor-intensive date farming sector due to the shortage of workers.
Head of the Agricultural Committee in the Madinah Chamber of Commerce and Industry and member of the multipurpose Cooperative Society Administration Hamid Bin Aisah Al-Faridi said the date harvesting season this year would be hit hard since there would be a massive shortage of labor once the amnesty period comes to an end.
Urging the authorities to initiate measures to meet the demand for labor at the earliest, Al-Faridi said the date harvesting season extends over a period of 45 days, and if the labor shortage crisis is not resolved, the yearlong efforts of the farmers will be wasted.
Pointing out that the requirement was one worker for every five palm trees, Al-Faridi said seasonal employment may solve the problem partially, and hoped farmers will also cooperate to overcome the shortage. The rising temperature has resulted in the early ripening of dates this year. Madinah dates are usually the first to mature because of the topography.
The first dates to arrive to the market this year are Al-Rabeiah, Al-Hilia and Ajwa. Al-Rothan and other date varieties from Madinah still haven’t reached the markets.
Al-Faridi advised farmers to cut water supplies to palm trees and expose dates to carbon dioxide to expedite their maturing process. This, he claimed, would not have any harmful effect on human beings and would give farmers greater leverage over their competitors.
Preliminary prices of dates ranged between SR 50 and SR 55 for a box. The Madinah date market covers most of the Kingdom’s needs of dates. Date prices are expected to be higher, mainly because of the high consumption of dates during the holy month of Ramadan.