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Iranian Dates Superior in the
world
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Similar to milk, honey and grapes,
dates are considered a complete diet and a very important
item of food. With plenty of vitamins and minerals,
dates have 25% more potassium than bananas while being
free of fats, sodium, and cholesterol. Dates play an
important role in the diet and treatment of obesity
and are the most important source of energy and food
in date producing areas. The most exquisite species
of dates are produced in Iran. The fruit has a large
variety and more than 400 varieties of the fruit, some
of which acclaimed worldwide, are produced in the southern,
southwestern, and southeastern palm groves of Iran.
There exists a good opportunity and a large potential
for trade in this commodity in Iran. Due to climatic
restrictions and the tropical nature of the date palm,
dates are produced in 14 provinces of Iran together
with Ghasre Shirin and Soumar in Kermanshah province,
Tabas in the southern Khorassan province, Khor and Biabanak
in Isfahan province, Taroud in Semnan province and extending
from central to southern Iran.
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In the year 1997, about 230 thousand
hectares of land were under date palm cultivation, 83.6
percent of which are productive. Hormozgan province,
with a date productivity rate of 29.7 %, ranks first
in the country followed by the provinces of Kerman,
Khouzestan, Boushehr, and Fars, having a productivity
rate of 18.8, 16.2, 11.8, and 11.6 percentage respectively.
The production of dates from 192 hectares of palm groves
in the country is approximately 877 tons with Kerman
province (including Jiroft area) having the highest
production share of 22.7 percent. Iran is the largest
producer and exporter of dates in the world with exports
of 51.2 and 59.3 thousand tons in the years 1996 and
1997 respectively.
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Date
processing includes several stages such as:
Separation of crown of the seeds, cleaning, drying,
moisturizing, polishing, sterilization, pressing, cooling,
grading, and packing.
Date
Products:
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Diced Date-a mixture of Soya
flour and /or dextrose and dates;
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Extruded Date Pieces-addition
of dextrose mixture to dates and utilization of
special machinery for producing dates in uniform
size; -Macerated Date-retaining the freshness
of dates through moisturizing;
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Date Paste- preparation of date
paste for use in the production of sweets, cerelac
etc.;
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High-Fiber Fruit-addition of
edible fibers to dates for the production of certain
diet foods and medicines.
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Under the present
condition, countries such as Turkey, Chile, and Mexico
are the major producers of dates in the world. By adopting
advanced modern technology in the preparation of high
quality date products, these countries have become the
tough competitors of Iran in the market.
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