According to the most recent Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development statistics ( compiled in 2015), the date palm covers about 167.000 hectares in Algeria with more than 18.6 million palms and a date production (all varieties) of nearly 990.00 tons.
The date-producing regions are generally located in the south of Saharan Atlas and cover 17 wilayas (that are indeed 16 wilayas in view of the fact that wilaya of Msila losts its date-producing potential).
The wilaya of Biskra is the first date-producing region with 27.4% of the total surface area, 23.1% of Algerian date-palms and 41.2% of the national date production.
Biskra is followed by the wilaya of El Oued with respectively 22%, 22.4% and 25%.
These two wilayas together produce more than two thirds (2/3)of the national date production.
The distribution per wilaya is as follow:
There are many dates varieties (more than 300) but only few of them have a commercial importance.
The main date varieties produced in Algeria are:
Deglet Nour
Ghars
Degla beida ou Gerbai
Tafezouine
The potential and the production per variety are as follow:
In terms of export, the exported tonnages of dates are constantly growing up from nearly 21.000 tones in 2013 to more than 28.000 tones in 2015. France remains the first client of Algeria with approximately 13 400 tones, followed by the UEA with 1 600 tones, Canada with 1 200 tones, India with 1 100 tones and finally the USA with 1000 tones.
On The world level and according to the FAO statistics , Algeria is ranked as the fourth in terms of date production after Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Algeria produces about 14% of the date’s world production and it exports less than 3% of its production while the world average is nearly about 12%.
