Assessment of the sustainability of date palm farms in the Oued-Righ Valley, Southeast Algeria

Abstract Our study aims to assess the sustainability of the date palm farms in the Oued-Righ valley using the Farms Sustainability Indicators (Indicateur de durabilité des exploitations agricoles-IDEA) method. Nineteen (19) farmers, who agreed to evaluate their farms, were surveyed using an appropriate questionnaire. In addition, Statistical analysis, using IBM SPSS Statistics version 27, enabled us to explore the results further and understand the relevance of the different variables. The results showed that the three sustainability scales (Agro-ecology, Socio-territorial and Economy) obtained scores higher than 50 points out of 100, in only three farms. The scores obtained by the agro-ecological and economic scales were above average for a large part of our sample, which explains that their agro-ecological and economic practices contributed strongly to the sustainability of these farms. While the score obtained by the socio-territorial scale indicates that practices at this level are limiting factors to their sustainability. The study reveals the need to improve socio-territorial aspects across three components: product and territorial quality, ethics and human development, and employment and services, to improve the overall sustainability of Oued-Righ valley date palm farms.