Traversing Food and Agriculture in and between Africa and Asia
Datelines: The Journey of the Date Palm from Arabia to South Asia and Africa and Back Again
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
15:00 - 16:45 GMT
Location: MFB-Amphi 2
Presenter(s)
AY
Alia Yunis
New York University Abu Dhabi/CIE-Center for International Heritage Activities, United Arab Emirates
Paper Abstract: This paper considers what it means to be a trendy “new superfood” when you are, in reality, an ancient, symbolic source of survival-- and part of the current agricultural colonialism connecting the Middle East to South Asia and Africa. Thousands of years before the word “superfood” became part of our vocabulary, the date palm survived alongside humans as the superfood of the Gulf and North Africa deserts. For centuries before oil, the date was also the Gulf’s currency in trade with South Asia, and date cultivation was a main reason for the slave trade with East Africa. This trade route would reach the US, with Oman bringing in more slaves from East Africa to meet the new American demand for dates in the late 1800s. Today, the US grows its own dates and teaches date agriculture to the Gulf and North Africa as part of its public diplomacy. Consequently, the Gulf’s date industry has exploded in the past 10 years, leading to increased migrant farm labor from South Asia and the acquisition of lands in places like Namibia, to grow dates in areas with no date palm heritage. This paper connects the date’s past to today’s date agriculture, as dates become an issue around heritage, water rights, food sovereignty and sustainable regeneration of land between the Southwest Asia, South Asia and northern and southern Africa.
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