The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and Iran’s Agricultural Education and Extension Institute (AEEI) signed an agreement in Tehran on October 5 for integrated management of date-palm pests and diseases. FAO said the project aims to train about 1,720 farmers, agricultural extension officers and technical staff across nine provinces.

Planned training covers Sistan and Baluchestan, Kerman, Hormozgan, Fars, Bushehr, Khuzestan, Yazd, South Khorasan and Isfahan. The work focuses on early detection, monitoring and integrated pest and disease management. FAO says Iran produces about 1.3 million tonnes of dates annually and has roughly 260,000 hectares and 40 million date palms; those are background figures, not new-period production data.