السيادة الغذائية للتمور و أثرها على استهلاك المياه في المملكة العربية السعودية

Abstract EN

This research aimed to identify the economic dimension of the food sovereignty of dates and its impact on water consumption in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia during the period 1990-2019.

This study indicated that the production of dates is concentrated in five productive areas, namely Riyadh, Qassim, Madinah, Sharqia and Hail.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia relied on local production to meet the consumption needs of dates.

The contribution of local production in meeting the consumption needs of dates ranged between a minimum of 97.74% and a maximum of 101.66% at a 95% confidence level.

The amount of water used in the production of dates increased from 735.37 million m3 , representing 6.53% of the total amount of water used for agricultural purposes in 1990 to 1197.67 million m3 , representing 5.95% of the total amount of water used for agricultural purposes in 2019.

Through the estimated econometric model, it was found that increasing the area planted with palm trees and the average temperature during the summer by 10% leads to an increase in amount of water used to achieve food sovereignty of dates by 9.5% and 0.35% for each respectively.

Also, increasing each of the estimated amount of water used in the production of dates and the amount of water used in the production of other crops prevailing in the cropping composition by 10% leads to an increase in the total amount of water used for agricultural purposes by 0.72% and 9.24% for each, respectively.

It is known that dates are a water-depleting crop.

In light of the scarcity of water resources, this study recommends not to expand palm cultivation, while allowing good date varieties to replace cheap ones.