الملخص الإنجليزي
Although the Omani government has been putting huge efforts in implementing Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA), there is still a lack of detailed information regarding its status, opportunities and challenges. Therefore, this study aimed to provide a comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the current status of CEA and to identify potential approaches and management practices to enhance this sector. The objectives of this study were: (1) to investigate the greenhouse (GH) farmers' efficiency in terms of actual and energy input usage via Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) approach and (2) to evaluate status and potentials of CEA using SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) approach.
The efficiency of the GH farmers was investigated using a two-stage approach and data were collected through assisted interviews (face-to-face). In the first stage, data envelopment analysis (DEA) was used to estimate the efficiency of the GH farmers and to pinpoint the wasted resources. Results revealed that 79% of GH farmers were technically inefficient. Water and electricity consumption exceeded the efficiency norm with up to 58% and 52%, respectively. In the second stage, the contextual (socioeconomic and environmental) factors that influenced the efficiency of GH farmers were identified using a truncated regression model along a double bootstrapping mechanism. Results revealed that water salinity was the environmental factor that has the most negative impact on GH efficiency. In energy efficiency analysis of GH farmers for winter and summer seasons, electricity was the major wasteful energy inputs with a total energy input use of more than 80% in both seasons. Energy efficiency analysis using DEA approach showed that an average of 25% from the total energy inputs could be saved if inefficient farmers follow the recommended amount of inputs in the study.
The status and potentials of the CEA development was evaluated using SWOT analysis. Data were collected using primary and secondary sources where the primary data were obtained from face-to-face field surveys that covered 18 related factors and the secondary data were gathered from Ministry of Agricultural and Fisheries (MAF) and Ministry of Social Development. Results revealed that the current status of CEA has several strengths (highly educated farmers with good experience, having sufficient amount of water and practicing crop diversity) that the stakeholders should preserve and many weaknesses (marketing difficulties, water salinity in the coastal areas and high soil salinity) that should be overcome. For future development and sustainability of CEA, there are various opportunities (establishment of processing and national marketing companies, solar and wind energy utilization, updating CEA information and more awareness programs) that have to be employed and a number of threats (pests and diseases, water shortage, cheap imported products, price fluctuations and lack of free training programs) to be avoid.
