A plane from the UAE landed with an unusual cargo: 35,000 date palm seedlings, drawn from 37 varieties, now settling into the quarantine nursery of CATAS's Coconut Research Institute in Wenchang, Hainan. Researchers check each one before it reaches the soil. The third such shipment, it carries a crop native to the Middle East and North Africa, whose sweet fruit is often called the bread of the desert. In Hainan, that bread is getting a new growing season.