Global Date Sector Annual Review 2026

The Annual Review consolidates validated returns from more than forty reporting members, covering production, consumption, exports, imports, trade value, prices, cultivated area and yield for the full 2018–2026 series.

Every figure in this edition passed the Council's four-stage validation workflow: member submission, secretariat validation, reviewer approval and publication. Provisional national estimates are flagged where final consolidation is still pending.

Global output reached an estimated 9.8 million tonnes, an increase of 4.8% on the previous reporting year and the fourth consecutive annual expansion. Growth remained concentrated in a small group of producers where irrigation modernisation and varietal upgrading advanced together.

Yield improvements, rather than new planting, accounted for roughly sixty per cent of the increase. Cultivated area grew only modestly, which has direct implications for water policy in the principal producing regions.

Export volumes again grew faster than production, lifting the share of output crossing a border to its highest level in the series. Intra-regional corridors absorbed most of the additional volume.

Unit values held above the five-year average, supported by continued demand for named varietal grades in high-income import markets.

Under the central scenario, output approaches 11.4 million tonnes by 2030 with productivity gains continuing to outpace area expansion.

The principal downside risks are water availability, input costs and the concentration of export demand in a limited number of destination markets.