KADCO plans 50% increase in Medjool date exports and 100 feddans increase in dates

In its experimental farm in Toshka, Kadco started with sixteen feddans of Medjool and Bahri, two of the best date varieties worldwide.

At present, dates production yields 100 tons of Bahri dates and 50 tons of Medjool.

Daniel Leroux, Kadco Egypt CEO and member of the company's board of directors, said, "These figures will considerably increase when the newly planted areas start full production within the estimated 4-year period."

He further highlighted, "So far, most of the Medjool production is sold on the local market while the rest is exported to the Gulf where demand is high on this top quality dates. Our future plans include exporting to the European market when the newly planted areas begin production, as well as increasing the Medjool exports from 10% to 50% in the coming period."

"Our total Bahri dates production is sold on the local market," he pointed out. "Both Medjool and Bahri varieties receive the same care and attention; ensuring Kadco signature quality for the export as well as the domestic markets with subtle differences according to the different market specifications," he added.

"The most important challenges facing Kadco in the expansion of dates cultivation include having access to true-to-type offshoots. To ensure the top notch quality, we've imported the first vitro-cultivated offshoots from a renowned Saudi Arabia nursery," Leroux added.

"The second challenge we face is the labour force, especially with the Medjool dates which involves a great deal of manual work for pollination, thinning (only 8 to 12 dates per strand to produce large size dates), in addition to the harvest, preserving, washing, sorting and packaging processes," he further added.

He concluded, "We are also planning to develop 6000 more feddans for which the necessary studies, detailed designs and tendering documents are underway. We expect that the second pump station and water pipe network to begin operation within two months. Hopefully, we can use this new network for irrigation prior to the end of 2013."