Abu Dhabi launches Liwa Date Festival

The Festival, organised by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage Festival (ADACH), is held in the city of Liwa in the Western Province on 18th - 26th of July, 2009.
Prior to the launch, Mohammed Khalaf Al Mazrouei, Director General of ADACH, inspected the Festival area.

"The event has a strong link to our deep-rooted heritage. We seek to embody it in practice on the ground inside the country, intensify it culturally and spread it in tourism to give it the global attraction it deserves," said Mazrouei.

"This Festival had succeeded with excellence to give back Ratab and palms their historic place and traditional role," he said.

"The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage organizes this event under a very clear strategy, through a comprehensive vision to preserve the heritage of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, tangibly and intangibly," he added.

The Festival is a "continuation of the major process initiated by the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and also as part of the implementation of the directions of Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, and Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces," he said.
"One of the primary goals and objectives of the Festival is to preserve the rooted national culture of palms and Ratab via the promotion of farmers to achieve greater quality of Ratab, in order to access more opportunities for excellence and competitiveness at local and global levels," he added.

The event is held under the patronage of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs.
UAE dates are seen as part of the country's heritage.

According to Obaid Khalfan Al Mazrouei, Director of the Festival, the launch came after full preparations by professional teams were made worthy of the symbolic place Liwa holds in the past and present of the UAE.

"The Festival this year will be the best, most celebrated and most updated, with the launch of a new logo of the Festival, and a website with distinctive digital information serviced, in addition to a tent for children," he said.
The Festival also includes the 'Heritage Taste' contest where top hotel chefs compete to present best dates' dishes, in addition to the main competition of the event on the various types of Ratab.

"The tents will host numerous activities to celebrate UAE heritage at its best form in a combination of originality and contemporariness, a beautiful bridge with the past, where man was - and remains - responsible for nature and the environment, in its palms, trees and fruits," Khalfan Al Mazrouei said.

"Here we must note that all the print publications, bags used and souvenirs in the Festival are all made from environmentally friendly materials," he said.

The Festival's activities this year will mark the centenary of the late Sheikh Zayed I, in addition to efforts to develop the Liwa crescent area on the map of tourism and within the seven natural wonders of the world.

"The estimated total area of the Festival tents are approximately 43,000 square meters, to make UAE in its best form which combines modernity with originality," he said.

The Festival also aims to encourage farmers to cater more for quality dates and palm trees, and informing them of the best methods of production.

"We opened the Ratab market for selling farmers' products directly to visitors, to encourage our citizens and farmers, making way for greater participation, as well as providing space that can embrace a wide array of events, which includes for the first time in the history of the festival on a variety of activities like Ratab competition, traditional market, evenings of poetry, traditional games and competitions on palms and agriculture, and a children's tent, electronic games and a children's theatre," he added.

The Festival includes activities such as: dates contests, traditional handicrafts competitions, evenings of poetry, traditional games, awareness-raising lectures on palm trees, question/answer competitions, a special session to educate children on how to care for palm trees, and dates' auctions.

"Our success in preparing for the launch of the Festival would not have been possible without the participation of 11 government departments concerned with the cultivation of palm and Ratab, and a number of specialized educational institutions and companies , which offer an exhibition of all that is new in the world of Ratab and give attention to the cultivation of palm, reaching up to 60 companies, with the participation of producing families, which oversee the 140 shops in the market,"

he said.
The Festival is part of the ADACH strategy to preserve the heritage of Abu Dhabi, in which dates and palm trees play a symbolic role.