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Overview of Date Fruit Production, Postharvest handling, Processing, and Nutrition
Muhammad Siddiq1 and Ibrahim Greiby2
1Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA, (Currently: Food Science Consultant, Windsor, Ontario, Canada)
2Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
Introduction
World production and trade
Marketing and consumption trends
Date palm growth and fruit production
Cultivars
Maturity stages
Harvesting and fruit quality/grades
Harvesting
Fruit quality and grades
Postharvest handling and storage
Postharvest quality evaluation
Date processing and by-products
Food safety considerations
Nutritional and health considerations
Nutritional profile
Bioactive compounds and health significance
Summary
References
Introduction
Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) belongs to the family Arecaceae (syn. Palmaceae) that includes 200 genera; genus Phoenix contains 12 of the 1500 species that belong to the date palm family. Phoenix palms are dioecious and are characterized by pinnate leaves and by duplicate leaflets with acute and sharp tips (Sanderson 2001, Uhl and Dransfield 1987). Besides date palm, the other two most highly valued Phoenix palms are Canary Island Palm (P. canariensis Chabeaud), an ornamental palm and the sugar palm (P. sylvestris Roxb), which is common in the Indian subcontinent for its sugar syrup (Zaid and de Wet 2002). Date palms grow in hot, arid regions of the world and are marketed worldwide as a high-value sweet fruit crop. It is considered as an important subsistence crop in most of the world's desert areas (Al-Shahib and Marshall 2003). The date palm has traveled remarkably well as civilization moved out of the Middle East and reached places such as Spain and the United States, with the Coachella Valley (California) later becoming the primary commercial region of date production in the US (Sauer 1993). Beyond the arid climates, date palm can also be grown in many other countries for food or as an ornamental plant including the continents of Americas, southern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. The majority of date palm-growing areas are located in developing or underdeveloped countries where date fruit is considered the primary food crop, thus playing a major role in the nutritional status of these communities (Pruessner 1920, Sanderson 2001).
The earliest evidence of date palm cultivation goes back to 4000 BCE in Ur, lower Mesopotamia (now Iraq), where the date palm trunks were used for the construction of the temples; while in the Nile Valley, date palm cultivation goes back to 3000 BCE (Erskine et al. 2011).The date palm tree was praised and cherished, as is evident from the drawings and sculptures of ancient civilizations of the Sumerians, Assyrians, Babylonians, and Egyptians, and later by the Greeks and the Romans (Pruessner 1920). Throughout time, dates have been held in very high esteem in all three major regions of the world. In Islam, the date palm is mentioned multiple times in the Holy Quran and 300 times in the sayings or Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad. Likewise, the date palm is praised in Christianity and Judaism and has been linked to numerous religious ceremonies such as Passover and Palm Sunday (Jalbani 2002, Musselman 2007). The date fruit is relished for its sweet, succulent, and exotic flavor. Besides fresh consumption, this fruit is processed into a wide variety of value-added products: such as dry dates, date paste, date syrup, date juice concentrate, date jam, date butter, date bars, date chutney, date relish, and date pickles. Date oil and date coffee are some of the by-products produced from date seeds (Huntrods 2011, Vijayanand and Kulkarni 2012).
This chapter provides an overview of date production, trade, and consumption, fruit biology and postharvest physiology, packaging and storage, processing and processed products, food safety and quality, and nutritional and medicinal significance.
World production and trade
The area under date palm cultivation almost doubled from 1990 to 2007 (0.63 to 1.23 million hectares), however, there has been some decrease in years 2008 to 2010 (Figure 1.1). The 2011 area figures stood at 1.20 million hectares (FAO 2012), which represented an increase of 90.5% as compared to 1990's. It is noted the increases in area under date cultivation were more rapid from 1990 to 2001 – about 70% increase to 1.07 million hectares – whereas only 11% increase was observed from 2001 to 2011. The total world production of dates was 7.51 million metric tons (MMT) in 2011, which represented an almost 120% increase as compared to the 1990 production of 3.43 MMT (Figure 1.1). World date production increased consistently between years 1990 and 2001, for a total of 97% increase to 6.76 MMT. The production from 2001 to 2011 showed mixed trends, with about 11% increase. The peak area under cultivation and production were 1.23 million hectare and 7.63 MMT, reported in 2007 and 2010, respectively (FAO 2012). Overall, it is noteworthy to mention that date cultivation and production have shown positive growth trends.
Table 1.1 presents data on the area under date cultivation and production for leading countries. Egypt was the top-most producer of dates with 1.37 MMT or 18.30% of total world production; followed by Saudi Arabia (1.12 MMT), Iran (1.02 MMT), United Arab Emirates (UAE) (0.90 MMT), and Algeria (0.69 MMT). Combined, these top five countries contributed a 68% share of total world production. Other countries, not shown in Table 1.1, with noticeable production (in thousand metric tons) were: Israel (37.0), Kuwait (33.6), USA (30.0), and Turkey (28.3). As per FAO's 2011 data, dates are produced in 37 countries (FAO 2012), however, it is noted that countries listed in Table 1.1 accounted for 95.4% of the total production while the remaining 25 countries contributed less than 5%. A regional distribution of date-producing countries is give below (*countries producing less than 10,000 metric tons):
- Asia (16): Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Iraq, Pakistan, Oman, China, Yemen, Israel, Kuwait, Turkey, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Occupied Palestinian Territory*, and Syria*
- Africa (15): Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Chad, Niger, Somalia, Benin*, Kenya*, Cameroon*, Namibia*, Swaziland*, and Djibouti*
- Americas (4): USA, Mexico*, Peru*, and Colombia*
- Europe (2): Albania* and Spain*.
Table 1.1 Leading date-producing countries in the world in 2011 (with over 50,000 metric tons).
Egypt had significantly less area under date palm cultivation (41,652 hectares) as compared to next five countries on the list, with a range of 123,230 hectares to 200,000 hectares (Table 1.1). The highest production of dates in Egypt is attributed to significantly higher tree density per hectare as compared to Saudi Arabia, Iran, UAE, Algeria, and Iraq. The disparity between the area under cultivation and production in individual countries can be further explained by date fruit yield per hectare in 20 countries (Figure 1.2). Owing to the high density of trees per unit area, Egypt had the highest date yield of almost 33 metric tons/hectare. China, the next country on the list, had a yield of 14.29 tons/hectare (or about 43.5% of that in Egypt). On the yield basis (4.5 tons/hectare), UAE, the fourth-largest producer of dates in the world, was not in the list of countries shown in Figure 1.2. It is further noted that, in addition to higher tree density, higher yield could be contributed partially to better production and management practices in some countries.
Major date exporting and importing countries, by quantity and value, are listed in Table 1.2. UAE led the list of both exporting and importing countries by quantity, with 237,898 and 227,726 metric tons, respectively. Based on the value of dates exported, Tunisia was the leader with over US $200,000 for 84,282 metric tons of dates exported. The wide variations based on quantity and value are due to a well-established grading and packaging industry in Tunisia as compared to UAE, Pakistan, and Iraq. For example, Pakistan ranked second in dates exported by quantity but earned only US $48,282 in value. UAE, which exported about twice the amount, earned even less than one-ha...
