SWOT Analysis Instrument Tool

Abstract

There is evidence of the strategic role that date palms play in the GCC countries. It is the most important income-generating crop and contributes significantly to the national economy of many GCC countries. Date fruit has proved to be the critical factor in ensuring food and nutritional security during food shortage and crises in desert farming systems and oases, and date palm plays an important role in the development of sustainable agriculture in these desertic zones of the Arabian Peninsula as it contributes significantly in increasing the resilience of these areas to climate change. Despite significant efforts made by the GCC countries, the date sub-sector has enormous room to grow in the region, and efforts should focus on integrated national and regional strategies. The expansion of the date palm industry is dependent on many aspects which, includee; control of pest and diseases; enhancing the quality of date end products; reducing field and post-harvest high losses; formalizing and streamlining market systems; and, developing date value added products and by products. However, If the date palm sector is so important, then a key question to ask would be: Why the sector is not performing well and less competitive? It might be because of several constraints and challenges are facing the local and international commercialization and marketing channels of the date palm fruits. At the local level, such challenges are decreasing demand for date fruits, weak post-harvesting transactions, lack of appropriate and attracting boxes for final appearance, no appropriate existing storage system till the marketing of fruits, lack of by-products markets, use of unimproved technologies for fruit packaging and wrapping, no linkage between all key processing date palm actors, lack of expertise and technical staff for date palm manufacturing industries, rural-urban migration, urbanization, no feasibility studies regarding the profitability of the manufacturing industries of date palm products, and the reluctance of investors to invest in the date palm sector. At the international level, the international markets are becoming very demanding in terms of standards and norms, mainly for perishable products such as dates fruits. This will be a challenge for local producers to be competitive in the international markets.