ReseaRch PaPeR Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences 2022, 27(2): 1–9 DOI: 10.53541/jams.vol27iss2pp1-9 Received 3 November 2021 Accepted 16 February 2022 Benefits of Value Addition in Agricultural Produce on Land, Water and Labor Productivities under Arid Agriculture: Case of Dates in Oman Alaa Al Hinai*1, Hemanatha Jayasuriya1, Pankaj B. Pathare1, Talal Al Shukeili1, Ibtisam Al Abri2 Alaa Al-Hinai ( ) s81455@student.squ.edu.om, alaa.w.alhinai@ gmail.com, 1 Department of Soils, Water and Agricultural Engineering, 2Department of Natural Resources Economics, College of Agricultural & Marine Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. Introduction Agricultural practices of most Middle Eastern countries have not been impressive in devel-oping sustainability and achieving food securi- ty (Baumer, 1983; Brief, 2010; Mizyed 2013). Arid and semi-arid regions of the Middle East suffer from water scarcity and land mismanagement which causes an ob- stacle to achieve agricultural sustainability (Ahmed et al., 2001; Mizyed, 2013; Namara et al., 2007; Rahman, 1996). One of the important ways to improve sustain- ability and food security is to reduce postharvest losses (Kiaya, 2014). From another perspective, the impact of postharvest losses extends to the environment through attrition in the use of lands, water, energy and labors in producing non-consumable products (FAO, 2013). The importance of utilizing postharvest losses is to raise incomes for many farms, combat hunger and poverty, فوائد إضافة القيمة يف اإلنتاج الزراعي على إنتاجية األرض واملياه والعمالة يف الزراعة اجلافة: حالة التمور يف عمان آالء اهلنائي*1، هيمااناث جاايسوراي1، ابنكاج ابثري1، طالل الشكيلي1، وابتسام العربي2 Abstract. Oman is an arid country in the Middle East with water scarcity, and hence land and labor management issues hindering agricultural sustainability and food security. Value addition can minimize food wastes, which is crucial to achieve sustainability by improving the land, water and labor productiveness. This study aimed to evaluate and quan- tify the improvements in land, water and labor productivities through value addition in date cultivated under arid con- ditions in Oman. Five date factories and different value-added products of the most popular date varieties, Khalas and Fardh were selected for this study. The comparisons were made between productivity improvements of the value-added products and the raw products. Khalas dates value-added with nuts had the highest productivity ratio of 540%, the same for Fardh was 360% while the lowest were in Khalas value-added with flavors with 111% and in Fardh date paste with 129%. In Khalas, the best improvement by the value addition in average land, water and labor productivities from the base-values of 6.93 ton ha-1, 0.57 kg m-3, and 0.82 kg h-1 of the raw date were 25.05 ton ha-1, 2.06 kg m-3, and 2.95 kg h-1 in date with nuts, respectively; while in the Fardh, these were 18.82 ton h-1, 1.55 kg m-3, and 2.21 kg h-1 respectively of the same value-added product. The variations in productivity improvement of selected value-added products could be due to the availability and cost of the raw dates, cost of the value addition, market options and selling price. Value addition showed high potential for improving productivities under arid conditions and is worth making adoption efforts for achieving agricultural sustainability goals. Keywords: Arid region, postharvest losses, productivity, sustainability, value addition, dates. امللخص:تعتــرب عمــان مــن الــدول القاحلــة يف الشــرق األوســط الــي تعــاين مــن نــدرة امليــاه، وابلتــايل فــإن املشــاكل املتعلقــة إبدارة األراضــي الزراعيــة والعمالــة فيهــا تعيــق اســتدامة الزراعــة واألمــن الغذائــي. إن إضافــة قيمــة للمنتجــات الزراعيــة ميكــن أن تقلــل مــن فاقــد الغــذاء، والــذي مــن املمكــن أن يكــون مفتاحــا لتحقيــق االســتدامة مــن خــالل تطويــر إنتاجيــة األرض وامليــاه والعمالــة. هدفــت هــذه الدراســة إىل تقييــم وتقديــر التحســينات يف إنتاجيــة األرض وامليــاه والعمالــة مــن خــالل إضافــة قيمــة للتمــور املزروعــة يف ظــل الظــروف اجلافــة يف ســلطنة عمــان. مت اختيــار مخســة مصانــع للتمــور للدراســة وحتديــد خمتلــف املنتجــات ذات القيمــة املضافــة مــن أصنــاف التمــور األكثــر شــهرة وهــي اخلــالص والفــرض. مت إجــراء املقــارانت بــن التحســينات اإلنتاجيــة للمنتجــات ذات القيمــة املضافــة واملنتجــات اخلــام. كانــت أعلــى نســبة إنتاجيــة للتمــور ذات القيمــة املضافــة هــي التمــور مــع املكســرات لــكال الصنفــن اخلــالص والفــرض بنســبة 540% و 360% علــى التــوايل، بينمــا األدىن مــن متــور اخلــالص هــي التمــور ابلنكهــات بنســبة 111% ومعجــون التمــر مــن متــور الفــرض بنســبة 129%. يف صنــف اخلــالص، أفضــل حتســن يف متوســط إنتاجيــة األرض وامليــاه والعمالــة مــن حيــث القيــم املضافــة مقارنــة ابلقيــم األساســية مــن املــواد اخلــام البالغــة 6.93 طن/هكتــار، 0.57 كجــم/م3 ، و 0.82 كجم/ســاعة كانــت 25.05 طن/هكتــار، 2.06 كجــم/م3 ، و 2.95 كجم/ســاعة يف التمــور مــع املكســرات، بينمــا يف الفــرض كانــت 18.82 طن/هكتــار، 1.55 كجــم/م3 ، و 2.21 كجم/ســاعة علــى التــوايل مــن نفــس املنتــج ذي القيمــة املضافــة. ميكــن أن ترجــع االختالفــات يف حتســن اإلنتاجيــة للمنتجــات ذات القيمــة املضافــة املختــارة إىل توفــر التمــور اخلــام وتكلفتهــا، تكلفــة القيــم املضافــة، خيــارات الســوق وســعر البيــع. أظهــرت القيــم املضافــة إمــكاانت عاليــة لتحســن اإلنتاجيــة يف ظــل الظــروف القاحلــة وتســتحق بــذل اجلهــود لتطبيقهــا يف حتقيــق أهــداف االســتدامة الزراعيــة. الكلمات املفتاحية: املنطقة اجلافة ، فاقد ما بعد احلصاد ، اإلنتاجية ، االستدامة ، القيمة املضافة ، التمور. 2 SQU Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, 2022, Volume 27, Issue 7 Benefits of Value Addition in Agricultural Produce on Land, Water and Labor Productivities under Arid Agriculture: Case of Dates in Oman spacing and region specific or cultivar specific planting arrangements. The uses of local dates, with a determina- tion of their quantity and the proportion of their use, are indicated in Table 3 (MAF, 2019b). The date palm is considered as the most water-con- suming crops, with total consumption of 558 Mm3 (Al-Mulla and Al-Gheilani, 2017) using scarce water resources (Al-Yahyai, 2006). Al-Mulla and Al-Gheilani (2017) estimated the water consumption for date palm of about 38% of the total water used for irrigation in Oman and around 31% of groundwater that facing about 316 Mm3 of water deficit annually. Table 4 shows the com- parison of the percentage water use with the percentage of cultivated area for open field crops. The percentage of cultivated area and the percentage water use for date palm are 30.2% and 42.5%, respectively (MAF, 2011b). Therefore, improving the water use efficiency in irriga- tion and water productivity has become a vital matter (Hamdy et al., 2003). The Ministry of Agricultural, Fisheries and Water Resources indicated that the annual water productivity of 6.930 tons of dates is about 2045 m3 in one hectare (MAF, 2011b). FAO (2008a) reported the annual water productivity of date palm in the range 0.150-0.210 kg m-3 as shown in Table 5. Al-Mulla and Al-Gheilani (2017) reported that water productivity can be increased from 0.570 to 1.560 kg m-3 with an average date price of 0.400 OMR, and in economic basis, the water productivity is increased from 0.230 to 0.630 OMR m-3. Moreover, oth- er studies indicated that the date water productivity is about 1 kg m-3 (Al Wahaibi, 2018), 0.350 kg m-3 (Joseph 2017), 0.440 kg m-3 (Chapagain and Hoekstra, 2008) and 0.489 kg m-3 (MAF, 2011b) and these discrepancies in productivity values may be due to the climate change, date palm characteristics, type of soil and other factors. The average number of labors used for different cul- tivated crops, their annual labour hours and annual cost are shown in Table 6. Dates are categorized as trees Table 1. The top ten cultivated date varieties in Oman (MAF 2019a) Date variety Date production (ton) Percentage of production (%) Naghal 37,167 9.86 Khisab 35,504 9.42 Khalas 35,225 9.35 Al-Mabsili 32,708 8.68 Umm Al-Salla 30,151 8.00 Fardh 24,847 6.59 Khunizi 21,152 5.61 Shahal 19,850 5.27 Abu Da’an 11,116 2.95 Madluki 10,877 2.89 contribute to the global markets and raise the standard of living (Kiaya, 2014). The decline in farm income due to intense competi- tion in global markets has led to consideration for agri- cultural product development by incentivizing farmers to introduce value-added activities into their products to sustain in this competition (Evans, 2012). Value addi- tion can contribute to offset the poor positioning of any agricultural product in the market, building up the qual- ity and branding, improving the income and increasing employment (Choudhary et al., 2015). It is defined as an activity that agricultural producers may process to pro- duce a new commodity outside the traditional frame to obtain higher returns (Evans, 2012). Oman is one of the Middle East countries that en- compasses an arid climate (Ampratwum and Dorvlo, 1999). Agriculture has represented the first source of life in Omani history (MAF, 2017) although climate change, water depletion, soil salinization and poor labor pro- ductivity pose weaknesses and threats in agricultural productivities (SARADS, 2016). Date palms and other fruits are considered as the permanent crops that cover huge cultivating lands with other vegetable crops (FAO, 2008b; MOI 2015). On the other hand, there is a high percentage of postharvest losses that may reach an av- erage of 28% in fruits and 30% in vegetables (Al-Lawati et al., 2016). The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources has initiated several programs toward enhancing agricultural productivity per unit area, im- proving the quality and preserving the agricultural prod- ucts especially the dates (MAF, 2011a). Therefore, this study was aimed to evaluate and quantify the improve- ments in land, water and labor productivities through value addition in date products cultivated under arid conditions in Oman. Date palm is one of the main cultivated crops in Oman with around 50% of the total cultivated crops and 80% of other cultivated fruits and with over 250 variet- ies (Al-Yahyai and Khan, 2015; Ali, 2010). Oman is the eighth largest producer of dates in the world with about 377,000 tons annual productions in 2019 (Al-Yahyai and Khan, 2015; MAF, 2019b). Date palm trees cover about 35,000 hectares of agricultural land in Oman, which contains more than eight million trees (Ali, 2010; Ishag, 2017). The top ten date varieties in Oman are shown in Table 1 (MAF, 2019a). The land productivity of dates in Oman has shown different statistics by deferent sources. Al-Mulla and Al-Gheilani (2017) reported that average date yield is about 6075 kg, on average, per one hectare with an av- erage income of 1065 OMR. The Ministry of Agricultur- al, Fisheries and Water Resources indicated that about 6.930 tons of date are produced per one hectare (MAF, 2019b). FAOSTAT (2019) estimated the statistics of date production and land productivity from 2015-2019 as shown in Table 2. This contradiction may be due to over 200 varieties having different yields, use of different tree 3Research Paper Al Hinai, Jayasuriya, Pathare, Al Shukeili, Al Abri and average labour productivity can be estimated as 0.815 kg h-1 (MAF, 2011b) of 6930 kg ha-1 of the aver- age date production. Materials and Methods Selected dates factories involved in value addition located in different areas of Oman were visited and the complet- ed questionnaires were collected from the stakeholders. The questionnaire contained two main sections, firstly questions about raw dates, and secondly questions about the value-added products of different date varieties. Subsequently, five-date factories were selected for the study and the two most popular date varieties were con- sidered for studying the value-added process. Two vari- eties mostly used for value addition by the factories were Khalas and Fardh. Moreover, the selected value-added products of different varieties were compared among the five factories to determine the range of the data vari- ation. The details of the selected factories, date varieties and type of value-added products are shown in Table 7 (Al Hinai and Jayasuriya, 2021). The land, water and labour productivities of the se- lected value-added products are calculated using the following equations (Cai et al., 2011; Hamdy et al., 2003; Karamanos et al., 2005) to compare it with the produc- tivities of raw date: (1) Where, Agricultural benefit (crop production) (kg), land use (m2). Table 2. The production and land productivity statistics of date in Oman from 2015-2019 (FAOSTAT 2019). 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Production (tons) 344690 355332 360917 368808 372572 Area harvested (ha) 24120 24120 24617 25125 25382 Land productivity (tons ha-1) 14.291 14.731 14.661 14.679 14.679 Per palm yield (kg palm-1) 114.3 117.2 117.3 117.4 117.4 Table 3. The quantity and percentage of date consumption in Oman (MAF 2019b). Consumption distribution Quantity (ton) Percentage (%) share Total production 377,000 100.00 Human consumption 198,000 52.52 Export 21,000 5.57 Processed dates 15,000 3.98 Available for industry 144,000 38.20 Table 4. Comparison of the percentage water use with the percent- age of cultivated area for open field crops (MAF 2011b). Crop Cultivated area (%) Water use (%) Field crops 3.9 1.2 Vegetable crops 17.6 13.3 Fruit crops 40.9 53.7 Fodder crops 37.6 31.8 Table 5. Annual water productivities of date palm and associated crops for different Middle East countries (FAO 2008a). Countries Annual gross water use (m3 palm-1) Annual gross water use (m3 ha-1) Productivity (kg m-3 of water) Egypt 86-124 10,280-14,880 2.28-3.31 Saudi Arabia 150-350 18,180-42-600 0.15-0.37 Iran 102164 12,270-19,720 0.21-0.34 Algeria 43-210 5,200-25,400 0.14-0.67 Oman 183-240 21,950-29,320 0.15-0.21 Libya 183-240 7,200-29,700 0.15-0.21 Tunisia 100 12,000 0.28 Morocco 105-200 12,600-23,900 0.21-0.40 United Arab Emirate 130-173 15,500-20,740 0.20-0.26 Yemen 130-173 15,500-20,740 0.13-0.16 4 SQU Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, 2022, Volume 27, Issue 7 Benefits of Value Addition in Agricultural Produce on Land, Water and Labor Productivities under Arid Agriculture: Case of Dates in Oman (2) Where, Agricultural benefit (crop production) (kg), water use (m3). Table 6. Average number of labors used, their annual labor hours and annual cost (MAF 2011b). Number of labour Number of months Average monthly wage (OMR) Average annual labour hour (h) Average annual labour cost (OMR) Cultivation of field crops (ha) 3.89 7.87 70 8,963 2,143 Fodder cultivation (ha) 4.02 9.19 70 9,262 2,586 Open cultivation of vegetables (ha) 5.52 7.59 76 12,718 3,184 The trees (ha) 3.69 9.70 70 8,502 2,506 Single greenhouse cultivation 3.36 8.79 75 7,741 2,215 Double greenhouse cultivation 3.38 7.19 75 7,788 1,823 Table 7. Data collection of date factories, date varieties and value-added products (Al Hinai and Jayasuriya 2021). Factory code (Location) Date variety Type of value addition A (Samail) Khalas Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts Fardh Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts Syrup B (Bahla) Khalas Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts Syrup Paste Date Halwa Fardh Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts Syrup Paste Date Halwa C (Nizwa) Khalas Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts Dates with saffron, Hill and cinnamon Fardh Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts Syrup D (Barka) Khalas Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts Paste Fardh Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts E (Ibri) Khalas Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts Paste Halwa Fardh Cleaned dates with packaging Date with nuts 5Research Paper Al Hinai, Jayasuriya, Pathare, Al Shukeili, Al Abri (3) Where, agricultural benefit (crop production) (kg), annu- al labour hour (h). The benefit of value-added products is calculated using the following equation (Lewbel 2003): Net income=selling price (value added)-purchase price (raw)-value addition cost (4) Where, selling price, purchase price and value-added prod- uct (OMR ton-1). The net profit based productivity ratio is calculated using the following equation (Farooq et al., 2001): (5) The key data of land, water and labor productivities of the raw date products estimated from the literature re- views and they are as follows: date palm planting density 125 palms h-1 (Kotagama et al. 2014), on average, raw date price 0.400 OMR (Al-Mulla and Al-Gheilani 2017) land productivity 6.930 ton ha-1 (MAF 2011b), water productivity 0.570 kg m-3 and the water productivity based on economics 0.630 OMR m-3, and average labor productivity 0.815 kg h-1 (MAF 2011b). Table 8. The summarized results of the two most used date varieties from the five factories in Oman (Al Hinai and Jayasuriya 2021). Value-added product Cost for the raw product (OMR ton-1) Cost of Val- ue-Added product (OMR ton-1) The selling price of value-added product (OMR ton-1) Net income (OMR ton-1) Productivity Ratio (Net profit basis) (%) Khalas Dates Cleaned date with packaging 400-500 100 600- 1,500 100-900 125-280 Date with nuts 500-800 400-626 1,500 – 3,200 500-2,200 183-540 Syrup 2,400 100 5,000 2,500 204 Paste 500-600 100-300 850-1,200 150-400 130-180 Date halwa 600 850-900 2,000-3,000 500-1,550 183-358 Date with different flavour; saffron, Hill, and cinnamon 800 615.4 1,500 85 111 Fardh Dates Cleaned date with packaging 300-600 100 600-1,500 225-900 138-280 Date with nuts 400-800 350-872 1,500-3,200 400-834 183-360 Syrup 4,200-4,800 100 5,000-7,500 400-2,600 109-180 Paste 700 100 1,000 200 129 Date halwa 700 872 2,000 428 161 Table 9. The improvements in land, water and labor productivities due to value addition in dates. Value-added product Land Productivity im- provement from 6.930 (ton ha-1) Water Productivity improvement from 0.570 (kg m-3) Labour Productivity improvement from 0.815 (kg h-1) Khalas Dates Cleaned date with packaging 8.660 – 19.400 0.713 - 1.596 1.019 - 2.282 Date with nuts 12.680 – 37.420 1.043 – 3.078 1.491 – 4.401 Syrup 14.140 1.163 1.663 Paste 9.010 – 12.470 0.741 – 1.026 1.060 – 1.467 Date halwa 12.680 – 24.810 1.043 – 2.041 1.491 – 2.918 Date with different flavour; saffron, Hill, and cinnamon 7.690 0.633 0.905 Fardh Dates Cleaned date with packaging 9.560 – 19.410 0.787 - 1.596 1.125 – 2.282 Date with nuts 12.680 – 24.950 1.043 – 2.052 1.491 – 2.934 Syrup 7.550 – 12.470 0.621 – 1.026 0.888 – 1.467 Paste 8.940 0.735 1.051 Date halwa 11.160 0.918 1.312 6 SQU Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, 2022, Volume 27, Issue 7 Benefits of Value Addition in Agricultural Produce on Land, Water and Labor Productivities under Arid Agriculture: Case of Dates in Oman Results and Discussion The productivity results of the two selected date variet- ies from the five-date factories in Oman are summarized in Table 8 (Al Hinai and Jayasuriya, 2021) that shows the selected value-added product, cost of the raw date, cost of the value-added product, net income of the val- ue-added product, and the productivity ratio through the value-added product. The results of the value-added productivity ratio of the two date varieties in Table 9 were used to determine the improvements in land, water and labour productiv- ities from the base values 6.930 ton ha-1 (MAF, 2011b), 0.570 kg m-3 (Al-Mulla and Al-Gheilani, 2017) and 0.815 kg h-1 (MAF, 2011b) respectively as shown in Table 9. The results showed that Khalas, Fardh varieties are the most widely used by the selected five factories for value addition process. This is due to the avail- ability, relatively higher production, variation in sug- ar content (Fardh has less sugar content than Khalas), low purchase cost, more economic value, and the good texture for forming and filling with different nuts and flavors during the value addition process. In Khalas variety., date with nuts has the highest pro- ductivity ratio that may reach up to 540% because there is a considerable difference between the selling price and the production cost (raw date cost and value-added cost) for about 3,000 OMR/ton that makes the net income higher as shown in Table 8. The second highest productiv- ity ratio was date halwa 358%, followed by a cleaned date with packaging 280%, date syrup 204%, date paste 180% and finally, date with saffron and other flavours 111%. In Fardh variety., consistent with Khalas variety., date with nuts has the highest productivity ratio that may reach up to 360% but it is less than the productivity ratio of Khalas variety. due to the high cost of the value-add- ed operations as shown in Table 8. Cleaned date with packaging is the second-highest productivity ratio 280%, followed by date syrup 180%, date halwa 161% and final- ly, date past 129%. Factories are not making value-added products of Fardh dates with saffron and other flavors. Date with nuts value-added products of the two date varieties got the highest productivity improve- ment compared to the other value-added products be- cause of the highest productivity ratio. Table 9 shows that the date with nuts in Khalas and Fardh has about 37.42 and 24.95 ton ha-1 maximum value in land pro- ductivity improvement from the 6.93 ton ha-1 of the raw date products respectively. Besides, the improve- ment of water productivity in date with nuts is up to 3.078 kg m-3 in Khalas and 2.052 kg m-3 in Fardh com- pared to the water productivity of the raw date 0.57 kg m-3. Moreover, the maximum value of the improve- ment in labor productivity of date with nuts is about 4.401 kg h-1 in Khalas and 2.934 kg h-1 in Fardh com- pared with the 0.815 kg h-1 labor productivity of the raw date. The average improvement productivities of the value-added products of the two varieties comparison prior value addition dates are summarized in Figure 1. In general, the variation of the land, water and labour productivities of the selected value-added products of two date varieties (Khalas and Fardh) are mainly due to the cost of the raw dates (before value addition), cost of the value-added process and selling price of the val- ue-added products. The cost of the raw date is varied among the five selected factories in different regions of Oman. In addition, differences in dates selling prices can be explained by the retail sale from suppliers and the quality of dates. The cost of the value-added pro- cess was also varied among the factories and this was because of the types of machines used (machine type and capacity), labour cost and other manufacturing processes. These two main costs of production (raw and value-added processing) lead to variation in the selling prices of the different value-added products at different factories to achieve the desired net income. Conclusion Oman is one of the arid countries in the Middle East, its agriculture sector is suffering from scarcity of arable lands, water and labour resources which has not been supportive in achieving sustainability and food security. Value addition can be one of the best options to achieve sustainability goals, minimize food wastes and improve product quality and exports by improving the land, water and labor productivities. The government of Oman aims to increase agricultural production, improve the quality and preserving the agricultural products especially the dates, which is most grown crop in Oman. Therefore, different value-added products from five different date factories in Oman were selected for the study with con- sidering two date varieties, Khalas and Fardh. Results revealed that the improvement of land, water and labor productivities can be achieved through value addition. Among the most common value-added date products, date with nuts achieved the highest productivity im- provement (540%) especially in Khalas variety followed by date halwa, cleaned date with packaging, syrup, paste, and date with saffron and different flavours. Moreover, in Fardh variety., date with nuts also obtained the highest productivity improvement (360%) followed by a cleaned date with packaging, syrup, date halwa and paste. The improvements in land, water and labor productivities were compared from the base values obtained 6.930 ton ha-1, 0.570 kg m-3 and 0.815 kg h-1 respectively and simi- lar trend were observed as the productivity ratios devel- oped. The variations in the productivity ratio of the se- lected value-added products are mainly due to the cost of the raw date, cost of the value-added process and selling price of the value-added products that may take into con- sideration for the future improvement in productivity. 7Research Paper Al Hinai, Jayasuriya, Pathare, Al Shukeili, Al Abri Figure 1. The average productivity improvement of land, water and labour at different value-added date products of two varieties (a) land productivity improvement in kg m-3 (b) water productivity improvement in kg m-3 (c) labour productivity improvement in kg h-1. 8 SQU Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, 2022, Volume 27, Issue 7 Benefits of Value Addition in Agricultural Produce on Land, Water and Labor Productivities under Arid Agriculture: Case of Dates in Oman References Ahmed M, AI-Rawahy S, Al-Handhaly J, AI-Saadi SN, Al-Ajmi H. (2001). Management of nitrate m ground- water: A simulation study. 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