Thu, 23 Oct 2025

Thu, 23 Oct 2025 Date growers hope to turn desert green as new lab opens

The bioscience firm has become a world leader in growing date plants.
DPD has received £11m investment from Indian company Atul Ltd over the past decade to expand its operations. With 60 employees and exports to 30 countries, the firm now grows over 350,000 date plants a year. The goal is to help combat desertification by planting thousands of date palms in India's Thar Desert, creating employment and an ecosystem that can mitigate urbanisation. The date palms will be produced using tissue culture, a process where small pieces of the plant are grown into multiple identical plants.
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