Mission One Million Date
The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries describes it as the largest agricultural project in the Sultanate ever. The farmers see it as a revival for their tradition. Scientists are excited about the research opportunities, while business people are seeing investment potential and entrepreneurs are already cashing in on the opportunities coming up with innovative concepts.
This is the One Million Date Palm Project a vision of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos that is fast becoming a reality with about 15,000 dates palm trees will be ready for harvesting in July as part of a project to grow one million date palm trees in the Sultanate.
Ibri farm is the first one in the one million date palm trees project. It contains 11,000 date palm trees of Al Fardh, Al Majdool and Khalas in Al Dhahirah. It is one among 11 farms in the project in six governorates, including Masrooq and Al Safa in the Governorate of Al Dhahirah, and two farms in Al Wajan and Al Qabil in the Governorate of Al Buraimi, Rahab and Al Najd in the Governorate of Dhofar, in Nizwa and Samayil in the Governorate of Al Dakhiliyah, and Al Kamil W’al Wafi in the Governorate of South Al Sharqiyah and in Ibra in the Governorate of North Al Sharqiyah which can grow 600,000 date palms.
Some of these farms can accommodate 10,000 trees, others 50,000 trees, and there are other farms that accommodate 100,000 date palm trees.
Dr Saif bin Rashid al Shaqsi, DirectorGeneral of the Directorate General of One Million Date Palm Tree Project at the Diwan of Royal Court, said that the vision of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos in this national project include comprehensive and integrated economic, social development targets that aim at creating a modern date palm sector in the Sultanate to support the traditional occupation while complementing each other. Revenues can be achieved by elevating efficiency at the same time achieving food security with use of modern techniques making it a feasible and advanced economic and social sector with the inclusion of processing, developing by products, in addition to marketing them locally and globally taking advantage of the comparative advantage of the dates of Oman to compete globally and their ability to excel at all levels of production.
He said that the 2nd stage preparation of the stage are under way and target to plant 400,000 date palm trees, indicating that the seedlings needed for the project comes from two main sources: the citizen’s farms where seedlings are transferred under the supervision of specialists and from the tissue culture laboratory in the Wilayat of Bahla.
“We are talking about producing one million date palms of high quality with high value. So we expect this project to make a real transformation in date palm sector and along with the project there will be many activities such as processing, manufacturing, marketing and reaching our products to outside Oman,” said Dr Fuad bin Jaafar al Sajwani, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. There have been challenges one of them being water and the other finding the right land. “We began executing the project by finding the water requirements in different regions all over Oman and we now have connected with related ministries to reach the amount of area we need to plant 600,000 date palm trees in six governorates – Buraimi, Dhahirah, Dhakiliyah, Dhofar, Northern Sharqiyah and Southern Sharqiyah. We have established 11 farms until now which are enough to accommodate the 600,000 date palms,” said Dr Al Shaqsi.
Dr Al Shaqsi explained that the project since its inception has met big challenges, including the natural challenges as many of the farms are located in desert areas, and the other challenge was the subject of finding a national team to implement this project in all its steps and supervising it, adding that after the success of the first stage we feel proud of our Omani youth who have proved their competence and being able to continue on the path to achieve successes.
The project is targeting four varieties of dates, which are Al Fardh, Khalas, Al Dhahirah, Bunarinja and Majhool. Famous throughout in Oman is Fardh, and in Dhahirah it is Khalas. Al Farad will formu- late around 80 per cent of the total date cultivation. The fourth variety, Majhool, is new to Oman.
In 2016 the Directorate General is expecting to harvest around 300 tonnes of dates this year. “We expect to increase the yield annually as the number of trees increase as well. After ten years we hope to achieve 100 kg per tree as the tree matures.”
The farmers had contributed in the plantation stage itself as they supplied the Directorate General with the offshoots. “We trained them with new methods especially in securing the farms from transferring of diseases from areas that are already effected. In addition, they also work in establishing farms. During the establishment of the industrial hub the farmers will have the opportunity to sell their crops in order to process the dates.”
The market potential is huge says Dr Al Shaqsi especially if the industry is targeted. Just focusing on dates as a crop is not enough. That is why the Directorate General had organized the conference to focus on Investment and Marketing potential by bringing together the experts and investors and looking at way to integrate the farmers, the producers of dates with investors and marketing companies.” The investors are expected to be both from the government as well as the private sector. “Any investor who is interested is most welcome,” pointed out Dr Al Shaqsi adding, “The investor will not invest until he is convinced. The discussions that came out in the conference all concluded that dates are very profitable.”