“The farming of new date palms should be in coordination with the ministry, which has a time schedule for palm planting. The ministry also aims to ban date imports during harvest seasons, and permit them in other seasons,” he said during a visit to a recycling plant for palm tree waste in Ahsa in the Eastern Province.

Since the Kingdom is part of the Arab free trade and Gulf Cooperation Council markets, its farmers have to ensure quality and improved productivity to protect their interests, the minister said.

Saudi Arabia is one of the top producers of dates in the world.

The Kingdom has launched a SR120 million project to combat the Red Palm Weevils pest that poses a huge threat to palm trees.

The project staffed by 755 Saudi youths uses special equipment to eliminate the bug while it is in its different stages of growth, even inside the core of the tree, Al-Madinah daily reported on Thursday.

Speaking on the occasion, Director of Agriculture at Ahsa governorate Mahmoud Al-Shoaibi said the efforts of the ministry to combat Red Palm Weevils has resulted in bringing down the number of affected palms to below 21,000 in Ahsa.

Weevils are capable of taking down entire plantations by burrowing inside the trunks and eating away at the insides without farmers realizing until it is too late, according to experts.

The pest, scientifically known as Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Olivier, reached the eastern region of the Kingdom two decades ago and afterward spread to many other areas in the country. The pest was first recorded in the northern United Arab Emirates in 1985, and since then it has spread to almost the entire country and then to Oman. In Iran, it was recorded in the Savaran region in 1990. It was discovered in Egypt at the end of November 1992 in Al-Hussinia, Sharqiya region. In 1994, it had been recorded in the south of Spain and in Jordan and the Palestinian Territories.

The cause of the high rate of spread of this pest is human intervention and by transporting infested young or adult date palm trees and their offshoots from contaminated to uninfected areas.