Economic and Environmental Returns of Agricultural Waste Recycling for Date palms in the New Valley Governorate

The research aims to study the production situation of date palm waste in the New Valley governorate, convert it to organic fertilizers as an alternative or supplement to chemical fertilizers, and conduct an economic analysis of one of the compost production projects from palm waste in Eldakhla district. According to the research results, the total amount of date palm waste in the New Valley governorate is estimated at about 132,127 thousand tons during the 2022/2023 season. And that 82.57 %, 61.43% of the total sample of the study use palm waste to make fences around farms and as roofs for livestock production farms, respectively, which calls for raising awareness among palm farmers of the importance of palm waste as an economic resource that can be an additional source of income for farms if it is directed to the production of new goods such as compost. The amounts of chemical fertilizers equivalent to date palm waste were estimated according to the amount of date palm waste and the concentration of basic fertilizer elements in these residues, where the net amount of nitrogen, phosphate and potassium fertilizer was estimated at about 1.021, 0.483, 0.289 thousand tons, respectively. The estimated value of chemical fertilizers equivalent to date palm waste in the New Valley governorate ranged between 50.575 and 70.555 million EGP according to the subsidized price and the free market price, respectively. This amount of fertilizer is enough for the horizontal agricultural expansion of an area of 5834 feddan. Some economic efficiency criteria of compost production were estimated, suggesting that converting date palm waste into compost could significantly benefit the agricultural economy in the New Valley governorate.