RAHIM YAR KHAN: More than 50-year-old Jajja Abbasian Date Market in Khanpur tehsil is facing imminent closure due to the impact of climate change and lack of profitability.
At its peak in the 1970’s, traders from different cities of Bahawalpur, Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan districts and some neighbouring cities of Sindh and Balochistan were regular customers at the Jajja Abbisian market on the Khanpur-Zahirpir Road.
Sharing its history, a long-time resident of the area, Master Ghulam Qasim, says the date trees existed in the area but in the 1970s more than 100 varieties of dates were grown here. He said when a local train between Khanpur and Chachran Sharif became operational, the first date market was established in Jajja outside the railway station. Later, two more date markets were established in nearby Basti Kamala and Khai Khair Shah.
He recalled that the largest date orchard was in Basti Kamala owned by one Jam Allah Bakhsh with almost 2,500 date plants. He said Nawab Sadiq V often visited the orchard. However, in the 1990s, two of the three date markets closed down.
Bahawalpur Horticulture Research Institute Principal Scientist Dr Muhammad Ikhlaq told Dawn that the main reason behind the decline in this business was due to climate change. He said that the old varieties of dates in the Jajja Abbasian area were best suited for the dry climate. However, as time passed, climate changed and Monsoon severely affected the fruit, which in turn affected the profit of farmers. Now, he said, farmers had converted their date orchards to mango orchards, which was many times more profitable for them.
Dr Ikhlaq further said that he and his team had worked on 15 different date varieties and imported date plants from Al Qassim in Saudi Arabia. He said these new varieties had smaller plants which were easy to pick and six varieties were proven compatible with the climate of south Punjab.
He said the government had approved all these varieties and the Federal Seed Certification Department (FSCD) had also registered them and it was now available for local farmers.
Jam Niaz Ahmed, another resident of the area, told Dawn that in the past it was a profitable and easy business for locals as there were no separate fields needed for date orchards and its plants were usually sowed on the banks of watercourses. However, the changing climate forced farmers to look to other plants.
Local date traders Irshaad Ahmed and Abdul Ghaffar Kalhora said that they used to buy dates for Rs150 to 250 per kg from farmers and later sold it at only Rs50 per kg profit. On top of that, they said that dates had a very short shelf life with unsold dates rotting the very next day.
On the other hand, date tree climbers, locally known as Charha, say that picking dates was labour intensive as well as dangerous and yet they earned very little.
Mama Abdul Khaliq Arian and Allah Dita Baloach, who were tree climbers, said that picking dates with care was a difficult task and they received only Rs700 to Rs1,000 per day for the back-breaking work.
Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2026