It's like stumbling across the Garden of Eden as you come around the bend after driving through the harsh, dry landscape of large red dunes.

Key points: The Desert Fruit Farm near Alice Springs is the only commercial date operation in the Northern Territory, and one of only a handful in Australia

The Desert Fruit Farm near Alice Springs is the only commercial date operation in the Northern Territory, and one of only a handful in Australia This year the farm was up 300 per cent on the previous year's yield, with 2 tonnes sent to the Middle East and the rest sold domestically

This year the farm was up 300 per cent on the previous year's yield, with 2 tonnes sent to the Middle East and the rest sold domestically Biosecurity Australia is considering allowing fresh dates to be imported from Africa and the Middle East, which has growers worried about cheap imports

Spread out across the edge of the Simpson Desert is a date palm plantation, trees swaying in the breeze.

The Desert Fruit Farm near Alice Springs is the only commercial date operation in the Northern Territory, and one of only a handful in Australia.

The trees are a legacy of Afghan cameleers who arrived in the middle of the 1800s — the 'pilots of the desert' effectively helped set up Central Australia's vast interior, and to keep homesickness at bay brought a little bit of home with them, in the form of palm trees.

"Dates [were] first grown in the Hermannsburg Indigenous community, with the mission they had to be self-sufficient in their food," said Ben Wall, the manager of the Desert Fruit Farm.

"[They] grew dates by the Finke River, the oldest river in the world, and the first commercial farm was set up in the 1950s."

Mr Wall said it was a thoroughly modern trend that has made this date palm a desert gold mine; as more people seek out sugar-free alternatives to get their sweet fix, dates are in high demand.

The farm has about 10 varieties of date.

"Often a lot of people want them for processing dates like energy bars and doing things with hemp, so these are good because they are kind of dry," he said.

Desert Fruit Farm manager Ben Wall and cooperative investor Tara Leckey look for female plants to fertilise. ( ABC News: Kristy O'Brien )

Date trees ageing like humans

The cooperative has been running since 2014 on a farm established by the previous owner in the 1990s.

Mr Wall manages the farm on behalf of investors, and is passionate about sustainable agriculture, particularly in Australia's arid zone.

Across 6 hectares, there are 700 mature female date trees, with about 20 male trees to pollinate them, he said.

But fickle in its fertility, date trees need to be hand-pollinated, with pollen from a male tree extracted and cut with powder to help transport it.

Ben Wall blows the date pollen into the middle of a mature female palm. ( ABC News: Kristy O'Brien )

The farmers essentially have to do the job a bee would do with conventional plants.

"It generally takes about five years [to attain] first fruit, but then you don't want to farm until about eight to 10 years," Mr Wall said.

"Dates are like humans, they live to be the same age — 80 to 100 years — and are most productive when teenage to 30 years old.

["They're] fertile, yes, and then a gradual decline, very elegant decline just like us."

Harvesting is also onerous, as the dates have to be picked by hand one at a time.

Huge Middle Eastern demand

This year the farm was up 300 per cent on the previous year's yield, with 2 tonnes sent to the Middle East and the rest sold domestically.

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"There's a huge market for them, and we get calls all the time from the Middle East because we are in the southern hemisphere," Mr Wall said.

"There are 2 billion Muslim people [for whom] dates are an important part of the culture, [so] we can sell anything we can grow, really."

Dates are grown in 40 different countries across 800,000 hectares, and Central Australia's arid zone is the perfect landscape and climate for growing them.

But despite that, the industry remains extremely small, with only a handful of operators across the country.

The Arid Zone Research Institute (AZRI) is working to change that, and holds the largest collection of date varieties in the southern hemisphere.

Its research will help inform farmers about the best varieties to grow to suit the climate and conditions, and will also offer pollination advice.

Stuart Smith from AZRI sees the Australian industry expanding in future years, particularly in the desert.

"Because of our isolation and dry atmosphere, we can produce a lot of crops without disease," he said.

"If you have adequate water well-allocated, and sustainably-allocated groundwater systems, which we have here in Central Australia, I think the arid zone is a good place for agriculture."

Fear of cheap imports as interest surges

Further south, farmers are also having success.

Dave Reilly has 3,000 date palms on his family property Gurra Downs in the Riverland District in South Australia, where they have been growing dates for 20 years.

Dave Reilly from Gurra Downs date farm bags his dates to protect them ahead of harvesting. ( ABC News: Kerry Stait )

He's a big supporter of helping other growers get a foothold in the market, but there is competition he doesn't welcome from cheap imports.

Biosecurity Australia is currently considering allowing fresh dates to be imported from Africa and the Middle East, which has him and other growers worried.

"That will totally change dynamics," Mr Reilly said.

"For example, we pay our staff $25 an hour, and we'll be competing with countries that pay a $USD1 an hour, so it's going to be very difficult to compete.

"Unfortunately that's what happens with free trade agreements; it doesn't benefit everyone, and our industry being relatively labour-intensive may well get beaten up by cheap imports."

Date farming in Australia is still a very small industry, despite growing demand. ( ABC News: Kristy O'Brien )

Mr Reilly is hopeful that discerning consumers will continue to seek out locally-grown dates.

"Australian relies almost entirely on imported dates so the demand is there, there's curiosity surrounding the Australian-grown fruit, so we are benefiting a bit over the last 10 years, selling that into the area," Mr Reilly said.

"Dates are now being recognised for their health benefits … so we are getting a lot of interest from health food people.

"Dates are sweet but also have a lot of nutrition so from a health food perspective dates are a wonderful substitute to sugar."

This ancient fruit could also be grown on Indigenous-run plantations, Mr Wall said.

"There is a lot of potential to grow the industry, there are a few growers around Australia now just finding their feet, [so there is] potential for dates to be growing around each Indigenous community," he said.

"You can use low-quality water, salty water to grow food, and they create a shaded ecosystem to grow other food underneath it, so we are really hopeful the industry can grow from this little farm here."

