SAYER DATES CROP 2019 REPORT
Reports from the plamyards across all southern provinces show indications that the upcoming crop of 2019 will not reflect the same as the previous year’s crop, which was a high yield crop year for Sayer Dates growers. These affects have been down to the heavy rainfalls during the insemination period of the Palm trees, meaning some female trees were unable to fertilize properly.
This phenomenon has affected two major Date growing areas and has caused crop reduction in ‘Shadegan’ and ‘Abadan’ regions by 50% to 70%. Despite this, other regions were not affected and were able to produce good standard crop for harvest in September.
Recent developments in crop and reports also show that the Palm trees have lost smaller fruits in the past two months meaning only the larger fruits remain on the palms. On following this, the new crop will provide a larger proportion of Select B & A Dates vs GAQ & FAQ sized Dates.
Given the facts above, an expected 30% reduction on the total crop yield in comparison to last year’s crop. Please see the below chart which provides details of the expected size for the new crop & the proportion of each grade:
Iran's economic situation has been stabilized in comparison to the last year and the US$ exchange rate has been stable for the past 10 months as result. The government has been able to provide a better platform for the exchange demands and have recovered the shortcoming of the oil income by replacing oil with other exporting commodities.It is also predictable that government’s minimum guaranteed purchasing price from the farmers will grow to higher than last year, however the exchange rates will keep the prices in competitive levels.
We are witnessing a trend that each year a larger portion of the Dates buyers are converting to purchase high quality Dates by products, specially Date paste. This fact is reducing demand for the whole pitted Dates in general and a better acceptance for the new product which is replacing the whole Dates. This trend is visible in North America, Europe, Japan, New Zealand and Australia (mainly quality oriented Markets looking for natural sweeteners and sugar alternatives).