The sixth Al Dhaid Date Festival opened on 8 October at Expo Al Dhaid in Sharjah. It runs through 11 October. The Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry organises the four-day event. It brings date producers, retailers, farmers and palm owners together from across the UAE. Mohammed Ahmed Amin Al Awadi, the chamber’s director-general, said the festival “had developed into a driver of economic activity in Sharjah’s central and eastern regions.”
Agricultural companies, government entities, and home-based date businesses are all taking part this year. Leading date-palm growers and productive families from the region are joining them. The market runs daily from 9am to 9pm, giving visitors a full day to browse stalls and watch the auctions unfold. Premium date auctions offer valuable prizes to growers who bring their best fruit. Auction consignments are accepted from 2pm to 5pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Rules cap each bidder at 60 kilograms and four varieties per session.
Only dates grown locally during the 2026 season qualify for the auction. Pressed or bundled dates are excluded, and organisers check entries closely before they reach the auction floor. The rule keeps the competition focused on fresh, premium fruit rather than processed products. Beyond the market, the programme includes workshops on modern farming techniques. Agricultural experts are also covering date-palm care and organic growing methods during the four days.
Culture alongside commerce
Cultural and folkloric performances run throughout the festival. It is a reminder that the date harvest remains a community event as much as a trading one in this part of the Gulf. Al Awadi said the festival supports both the agricultural sector and the UAE’s wider food security goals. That links a local harvest celebration directly to national policy.
That policy backdrop has grown more ambitious this year. Abu Dhabi has set a target of reaching 70% food self-sufficiency by 2040, up from 30% today. The strategy was unveiled this week at the Global Food Security Summit. Date farming is one of the most established forms of agriculture in the region. It now sits alongside newer technologies, such as vertical farms and hydroponics, in that wider push.
A harvest with a large diaspora audience
The UAE produces around 150 date varieties. Harvest-season festivals draw visitors well beyond the farming community itself. Previous editions of the Al Dhaid festival have drawn tens of thousands of visitors, according to past festival reporting. Sales have run into the millions of dirhams over just a few days, making it one of the larger agricultural events on Sharjah’s calendar each year.
For the UAE’s large South Asian and Keralite diaspora, date season carries its own resonance. Dates are a staple gift and iftar food across South Asian Muslim communities living in the Gulf. The festival’s bidding rules, workshops and folkloric programme give this year’s edition a similar shape to previous years. Even so, the government strategy around it keeps growing more ambitious. Officials now frame locally grown dates as one small but visible part of a much larger food security plan for the decade ahead, one that reaches well beyond a single harvest festival in Sharjah.
