Abstract
Date Palm (ploenix dactylifera) is the most important cultivar and economic fruit in Middle East and Oman and occupies 35% of total cultivated area and 78% of the total fruit trees area in Oman. The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries attempted to improve Date Production but due to environmental constrains and climate change agricultural production has shown instability in production and resources degradation. The Government announced Date Palm replanting and replacement of 800 thousand date palm trees up to 2020. The study applied a stochastic modeling approach to evaluate Date Palm varieties in Batinah Region of Oman and identify the most sustainable and risk efficient varieties. Stochastic Efficiency with Respect to a Function (SERF) performed and found that Naghal variety is the most risk efficient variety followed by Shahil and Khussab variety. Certainly Equivalent CE values over a range of risk aversion coefficients are calculated by using (SERF) analysis. The study reveals that optimal replanting age is 55 years for Khussab variety at Batinah Region. Date Palm Replanting and replacement program in Oman should consider farming system and economic sustainability. Adaptable Date Palm variety in term of drought and salt tolerance varieties, Date quality and price parameters need to be addressed. The market absorption of Date variety and consumer preference is important factor and needs to be considered by policy maker in Date Replacement Program. Risk premium of RO 533 per one hectare can be given to Farmer as economic incentives to keep Um Saila Date Palm variety in their land and encourage replanting low yield sustainable varieties in marginal area and improve crop diversification for each region.
Highlights
The Date Palm cultivation is considered as the most important agricultural activities in Oman with a large number of varieties and spread over a large integrated ecological and farming system
The main task of this paper is to investigate Date Palm replanting strategies with different investor risk aversion level
The main Date Palm cultivated varieties at Batinah Region such as Um Saila, Shahil are mainly used for industrial purposes and Kussab, Naghal and Khunaizi used for direct human consumption were tested to select and identify the most risk efficient and sustainable variety
Summary
The Date Palm cultivation is considered as the most important agricultural activities in Oman with a large number of varieties and spread over a large integrated ecological and farming system. Oman has about 200 date palm varieties and 30 types of these varieties are recognized as good varieties and have commercial and high market absorption demand Top good varieties such as Khalas produce about 8% of total production and second top varieties date such as Zabad , Khanizi , Barni and Madlozi are commercial dates varieties and can be stored and sale off the season with a reasonable price. Farmers are diversifying date palm cultivated varieties to manage risk associated with price and yield uncertainty in term of extending harvesting period and producing different type of dates for different use i.e. human, industrial, animal feed. Farmers managed to develop resilience agricultural systems by introducing jsd.ccsenet.org
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