Development of Guidelines and Procedures for Value Addition to Improve Productivity and Sustainability: Case of Dates in Oman

The main global challenge nowadays is how to achieve food security with sharp population growth by considering long-term sustainability. Adding value to many agricultural products can improve product quality and farmer income, minimize waste, and address food security issues towards sustainability. In Oman, date palm is the most cultivated and consumed crop and has a high percentage of postharvest losses, which provokes more focus on arranging strategies to improve date production with quality and high productivity. This study aimed to develop guidelines and procedures for the value addition of dates in Oman, taking into account different farm categories (individual, group, SME) and four mechanization levels based on machinery used in different processing steps. Six date factories engaged in value addition in Oman and three popular value-added products from different date varieties were selected for the study. Nine value-addition guidelines/procedure sheets were developed, each with 13 features such as the mechanization level of each process, investment, technology transfer, and capacity-building needs. Among the results, the guidelines/procedure sheets for dates with nuts under the individual farm category of areas up to 0.84 ha and mechanization levels 1 and 2 will need an initial capital investment of 1500–3000 OMR, and the average value-addition benefit could reach a productivity uplift of up to 165% with 4550–7850 OMR annual net profit. The nine developed guidelines/procedure sheets will provide decision-making support for farmers, producers, and extension officers, and will contribute to improving product quality, farm income, productivity, and agricultural sustainability. The developed sheets will provide country-specific protocol developments and a significant contribution from this study is that all stakeholders are expected to benefit.