Iraq is famous for the quality of its dates. Palm trees are found in all Iraqi cities — on the streets, in private gardens, in farmlands and fields. Before its war with Iran in the 1980s, Iraq had 30 million date palms producing 1 million tons of dates annually. However, disastrous military campaigns and decades of neglect devastated the trees and damaged the date industry, which was second to oil in national export revenue.

Three decades ago, Iraq had more than 30 million palm trees but there are approximately 12 million trees currently.