By Qudsia Bano ISLAMABAD, Feb. 02 (INP-WealthPK): Pakistan's share of date exports is tiny in the world market, which can be enhanced significantly if production techniques are modernised and farmers are given incentives to help the country earn precious foreign exchange and combat poverty. Pakistan is the only country in South Asia that commercially grows dates with its total output ranking third among the major fruits. Moreover, Pakistan is ranked sixth in the world as far as the date production is concerned. Dates are grown on roughly 98,000 hectares, giving a cumulative yield of 541,000 tonnes with an average per hectare yield standing at 5.5 tonnes. Dates are mostly grown in Sindh's Khairpur and Sukkur districts, Turbat and Panjgur regions of Balochistan, Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab's Muzaffargarh and Jhang district. Sindh produces the bulk of dates followed by Balochistan, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, commercial farming is limited with low crop yield. Dr Iqrar Ahmed, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, said that Pakistan's share of date exports is tiny in the world market, which can be enhanced with little government attention. He said that the varsity had organised a date palm festival in October 2021, where over 50 varieties from throughout Pakistan were put on display. Dr Ahmad stated that in order to capture the world market, value addition and diversification in date production are required. He claimed that through implementing value addition, the agricultural economy might be enhanced. According to him, Pakistan produces roughly 0.5 million tonnes of date palm each year, but due to traditional methods, exports are limited to dry dates. Farmers' awareness of value addition, contemporary technology, and pest management will boost productivity. He said the Faisalabad university with the help of the University of Alaska is conducting research on tissue culture to enhance the development of improved types of dates. Asim Munir, chairman of Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s standing committee on UK, EU and South America, said that the FCCI will send trade delegations to various potential markets with a view to increasing date exports. “FCCI is planning to send trade delegations to Spain, Sweden and South America during this month (December), and to Mexico, Brazil and Colombia in February next year.” Moreover, China can also be a good market for Pakistani dates, he added. On its part, the government is offering interventions at the corresponding focal point of each cluster to ensure the cluster-specific environment in order to make dates a competitive and export-oriented commodity. For this purpose, a $108-million project is under consideration, 28% cost of which will be borne by the federal and provincial governments, while the rest will be covered by the private sector. According to the statistics provided by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, cumulative exports of fresh dates were Rs2.6 billion in July 2021, while dried dates exports for the month were Rs6.4 billion.