H.H. Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak AL Nahayan: We are keen to translate the leadership's vision in supporting and developing the date palm cultivation, date production and agricultural innovation sectors, at the local and international levels.

Under the directives of H.H. Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation, the Award’s General Secretariat issued a book entitled “Date Palm Diseases and Pests” by Dr. Walid Abdul-Ghani Kaakeh, Diseases and Agricultural Pests expert. This book is one among  a series of the Award’s scientific  publications, through which the General Secretariat was keen to achieve the Award’s objectives for which it was established, and its role to support scientific research and disseminate specialized scientific information, as the Award  became one of the main sources of information in the field of date palm cultivation, date production and agricultural innovation, and benefiting from various experiences to improve the agricultural and date palm sector according to International best practices.

Dr. Abdelouahhab Zaid, Secretary-General of the Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation highlighted that this book includes scientific and technical information and guidance as well as recommendations that will benefit Date Palm cultivators, especially farmers, plant protection specialists, and Agricultural guides. Dr. Zaid, also highlighted that combating date palm diseases and pests is one of the important operations that farms tend to use to maintain the production of date palm trees, due to the damage and losses caused by pests. Therefore, the main goal of combating diseases and pests is to reduce their numbers to a level at which they can’t cause economic damage, in terms of quantity and quality. The scientific development and progress have also provided several methods, procedures and techniques that enabled controlling many economic Date palm tree pests, which contributed to the success of many different control programs and reduced the damage and dangers of these pests.