Royal Commission for AlUla launched a farmers market to showcase the regions vibrant heritage

As part of the AlUla Dates Season, the Royal Commission for AlUla has organised a farmers' market to highlight the colourful history of the area, the Saudi Press Agency said on Monday. The market in Al-Manshiyah Plaza is a season highlight, showcasing unique applications of dates in a variety of goods and offering interactive sessions with famous chefs that honour AlUla's culinary heritage and encourage inventive date-infused recipes. 

AlUla Dates Season got underway on September 13 and will run until November 9 in partnership with a number of public and private organisations.

An essential component of the season, the dates auction sees a spike in business as buyers and vendors swarm to buy bulk amounts of dates. Annual date sales are significantly boosted by the auction, which also helps to create business prospects for buyers and producers. 

Date traders and processing firms attend the Friday and Saturday auctions. Participating farmers will be honoured in an award ceremony as part of the festival, with awards of SR75,000 ($20,000) for first place, SR50,000 for second place, and SR30,000 for third. 

Winners will be chosen according to predetermined standards, such as value and volume of sales.

This program supports the objective of making AlUla dates more competitive on a national and regional level, which will promote economic growth in the agricultural industry. 

Medjoul and ambara are among the varieties of dates that AlUla produces. 600 farmers participated in the dates season last year, bringing in SR13 million in sales. 

Concurrently, approximately 3 million date palm plants over 10,000 hectares in the area yielded 113,000 tonnes of dates.