FIle photo of date palms arrayed in a line in Shaqra, The Special Committee of Male Date Palm Development at the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA) visited the Males Date Palm Development Project located in the west of Shaqra, owned by the Dilal Al Ezz Dates Company. RIYADH — The Special Committee of Male Date Palm Development at the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA) visited the Males Date Palm Development Project located in the west of Shaqra, owned by the Dilal Al Ezz Dates Company. This project is the first-of-its kind in the world in terms of the number of male germ plasma and its varietal diversity. This visit comes within the Ministry’s strategic interests in the implementation of planting date palm trees in the Kingdom to achieve the goals of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. The date palm cultivation and production has received a great deal of financial support from the Ministry. The ministry had launched earlier a program "The Red Palm Weevil Control Program", with the aim of preserving the integrity of the date palms in the Kingdom, and the state has allocated a budget of SR1 billion and SR766 million to combat this pest. The project was established in 2019, taking into account the best use of the latest technologies to provide water, fertilizers and pesticides, and reducing the number of workers. The project will be completed by the end of 2021 to reach the target number of 350 thousand male date palms, and the production will start in 2025. The project aims to produce date palm pollen grains formulated by an improved scientific way, wrapped and sterilized for sale in local and international market and to make them available throughout the year. It also aims to limit the spread of pests and diseases, improving the production of local and international dates, and attaining the food, pharmaceutical and manufacturing industries to reach self-sufficiency. It is noteworthy that the project is also intended to produce improved male date palm seedlings with distinctive characteristics. These seedlings will be propagated through tissue culturing and sold locally and internationally, as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will be the pioneer in this field and has the precedence in producing improved male date palms with distinctive and economic characteristics. — SPA