WHILE major crops have generally benefited from the monsoon season, the date crop has reportedly been hit by rains in Khairpur.

According to some estimates by market dealers and growers, 60-75pc of the crop was affected in the third week of July, when the crop was ready for harvesting. The rains normally come by the end of August, when harvesting is over.

The rains continued for around 10 days, damaging the quality of otherwise healthy dates. Last year too, the crop had been hit by fungus due to an extended cold weather.

Dates are grown in the riverine area in upper Sindh, which is currently inundated with floods

Since the orchard owners do not have modern processing and packaging facilities, they mainly depend on the sun’s heat to dry the seasonal fruit.

The heavy rains also discoloured the dates in the water-flooded fields. The damaged dates fetch lower prices and are normally sold through middlemen. Only 5-10pc of the orchard owners who have the holding capacity are able to sell their crop when the prices rise due to inadequate supply.

“Around 75pc of the crop has been damaged as it was fully ripe when it rained. The mid-July rains were untimely as that was the ideal time for harvest. We were not able to do the picking,” said orchard owner Qasim Jaskani from Khairpur.

But he was confident that prices would shoot up after two months given the higher demand and lesser supplies, though only a few farmers would be in a position to take advantage of this situation.

Khairpur district produces 90pc of the crop in Sindh, while 5pc comes from Sukkur and the remaining from other date pockets. Like mango orchards, date orchards are leased out to contractors by farmers, and the contractors invest after taking advance money against the crops from middlemen promising to sell their harvest to the lenders. Such contractors are in a difficult position.

According to Jaskani, the top quality dry dates were sold for Rs3,000-4,000 per 40kg last year, and the second quality for Rs1,000-1,500. The first quality fresh dates were sold for Rs4,000-5,000 and the second quality for Rs2,000-3,000.

This year, however, the chhuaura is being sold for Rs1,500-2,000, while the fresh dates are going for as low as Rs400 per 40kg. Nearly 60pc of the crop has been disposed off so far, say market sources.

Meanwhile, the rains and then the post-rain climate have increased the farmers’ expenses. The processing of dates, which normally takes a week, has been extended to 12 days. The growers are engaging labourers for extra time to take care of the dates during the drying process and then keep them covered during the night to avoid dew, which increases moisture.

With inadequate earnings this year, the farmers would face difficulty in arranging money for next year’s crop. Dates are grown in the riverine area in upper Sindh, which is currently inundated with floods. Last year, orchards stood at 33,750ha against 32,510ha in 2013, yielding 280,800 and 270,500 metric tonnes respectively.

Sources in Sukkur’s dates market said fresh dates of A-grade quality (the aseel variety) fetched Rs5,000-6,000 per 40kg last year. Now, the shortage of this quality of dates might lead to deals touching even Rs10,000. Quantity-wise, the availability of this variety is estimated at 2-5pc of total market supplies.

Traders said if the seasonal conditions remained favourable, they would harvest around 2m bags of chhuara of 90-100kg each. But they expected the output to be not more than 0.5m bags this year.

Khemchand, who is the general secretary of Sukkur’s Anjuman Tajiran Agha Qadir Dad Zarai Market, said the damaged or low quality chhuara was being sold by farmers for Rs1,500-3,000 per 40kg, and the fine quality chhuara was going for Rs3,500-5,000. Likewise, damaged fresh dates were being sold for Rs400-2,000 per 40kg this year against last year’s Rs2,000-5,000. “Hardly 18pc of the crop is fit for trade, while the rest will be sold as livestock fodder.”

As far as foreign sales are concerned, Sukkur-based exporters are getting their supplies from Balochistan. They are not hopeful they would meet the annual export demands from Sindh’s orchards alone.

For instance, Rehmatullah Memon exported 100-125 containers last year (one container carries 18 tonnes each of dates) to the US, England and South Africa. He said he would not make such a level of sales this year. He has received consignments from date-growing areas in Balochistan like Turbat, Nasirabad, Mand and Ghamazi.

Published in Dawn, Economic & Business, August 17th, 2015

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