Date Palm Development in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries of the Arabian Peninsula:

Moustafa, A. T. A. E. Osman and Z. E. Lashine, 2004 Date Palm Development in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Summary Proceedings of a Regional Workshop, 29-31 May 2004, Abu Dhabi, UAE. ix + 63 pp.

Abstract

Date palm has played an important role in the economy, history, and culture of the Arabian Peninsula since ancient times. It is estimated that, worldwide, the total area cultivated with date palm amounts to over one million hectares, 60% of which is in the Arab world. Of the global production of 6.4 million tones of dates in 2003, Arab world contributed 63%. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries grow date palm over an area of 365,000 hectares, which represents 33% of the global area. They produce 1.9 million tones of dates per year, representing 29% of global production. ICARDA addresses the needs of the Arabian Peninsula region for agricultural research, technology transfer and institutional strengthening and capacity building through its Arabian Peninsula Regional Program (APRP), which is based in UAE, and is one of the seven regional programs of the Center covering dry areas worldwide. ICARDA has been working with its national partners in these programs to periodically determine their research and development priorities to provide appropriate direction to the joint research efforts. In such a priority-setting exercise done with the national programs of Arabian Peninsula in 2002, the GCC countries ranked the date palm research and development as high priority. Due to date palm's economic and social importance, ICARDA organized a Regional Workshop on Date Palm Development in the Arabian Peninsula, in Abu Dhabi, in May 2004. The workshop was held under the patronage of H.H. Sheikh Nahayan bin Mabarak Al Nahayan, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research and Chancellor of the UAE University, and in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, UAE, the UAE University, and the GCC General Secretariat. The workshop addressed the following scientific themes: (a) Propagation and crop Management; (b) Crop protection and integrated pest management (IPM); (c) Post-harvest, marketing and processing of date palm added-value products; (d) Biotechnology and germplasm conservation; and (e) Information technology and expert systems. The workshop was a major step in developing a technically sound research and development program for date palm for the GCC countries. As a result, a research and development Project entitled "Development of Sustainable Date Palm Production Systems in the GCC of the Arabian Peninsula" was formulated. The Project will focus on problem-solving research, technology transfer, and capacity building. This volume presents all the reports and scientific papers presented at the above workshop.