Young people with creative ideas are helping to revive the Iraqi date industry in unique ways – having people adopt date palms that grow in their backyards, marketing gourmet boxes of dates that celebrate Iraqi history and culture, and sharing modern ideas of cultivating the palms.

Date palms have been part of Iraq’s history for more than 4,500 years, providing food and shelter. During Ramadan, dates traditionally are the first food eaten to break the fast after sunset. They regulate the body’s use of sugar and are an excellent source of fiber and carbohydrates.

Once known as the “King of Dates”, Iraq’s 30 million date palms produced one million tonnes of dates each year until the 1980s. But war with Iran in the 1980s, decades of neglect, and a lack of water in the TIgris and Euphrates rivers, harmed the industry, which previously had been second only to oil in terms of national export revenue.