“Don’t give me a fish. Give me a net and show me how to fish.” This is a proper economic principle, especially when it concerns government support to all sorts of economic activity. We can look at what happened here with wheat and what is now happening to dates. The government decided to buy dates from the farmers for almost SR75 million; this is an understandable procedure if there is an emergency which calls for such action. The procedure, however, should not become policy that is applied year after year because that will mean that farmers will become dependent on the state and not try to depend on themselves and initiate ways to increase and market their products. In addition, such government support is burdensome on the national budget and diverts it from dealing with other responsibilities.
The Kingdom’s annual date production is, according to the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce, about 930 tons with 660 tons being consumed locally. Only 3 to 5 percent of the production is exported which means that there is an excessive amount of waste and hence loss for the farmers. Thus the state’s decision and course of action is correct on the short-term basis; however, a long-term solution must be considered with perhaps establishing a company for marketing dates as the primary aim. Initially, the government would support such a company by giving loans and export guarantees. There are of course other solutions such as being creative in date manufacturing similar to what is being done with chocolate and the variety of uses we put it to. We could do the same with dates by establishing an institution for dates and research into dates. We could bring in experts in making sweets and biscuits. In such cases, factories could manufacture the products with initial aid from the government. As such, dates would become the “sweet oil” as we would preserve a national treasure. And, instead of palm tree cultivators joining the ranks of the unemployed, we would actually increase jobs by establishing the new markets and so benefit all.
