ABU DHABI // Salim Al Muhraibi knows each of the 400 date palm trees on his Liwa farm inside-out.
So when the Farmers' Services Centre (FSC), the government body tasked with modernising Abu Dhabi farms, offered to lend him a helping hand he was reluctant.
"We've been planting these trees for hundreds of years," Mr Al Muhraibi said. "They have no idea how to plant or how to take care of a date palm tree."
He pays the centre Dh3,000 a year for its services and receives a monthly subsidy of Dh7,500, partly from an FSC programme that aims to improve the condition of date palms across Al Gharbia.
Last year, 50 farms joined the improved date palm nutrition scheme, which involved cleaning and trimming palms, fertilisation and spraying for pests.
This year the scheme will expand to cover 175 farms in Al Ain and Abu Dhabi. They will serve as demonstration sites for the centre's 24,000 farmers, teaching them to apply the practices on their own farms.
But getting farmers to put the advice offered into practice has proved the centre's biggest challenge, and Mr Al Muhraibi's attitude is all too typical.
"They didn't bring anything new to us," he said. "They didn't teach us anything. We are teaching them and they're here to learn from us."
The programme provides farmers with a high-tech conditioner that improves soil structure by adding organic matter.
It helps to keep nutrients in the soil, rather than being washed away by irrigation, and adds mycorrhizae - tiny fungi that work with the trees' roots to help them take up water and nutrients.
"Within three months there was a significant difference in the condition of the trees," said Ray Moule, the centre's technical services director. "[They] went from being yellow-looking and tired to fresh and almost like a second youth."
At harvest time, the size and quality of the fruit had also noticeably increased.
But Mr Al Muhraibi stopped using soil conditioner three years ago, saying "it made no difference". For fertiliser, he uses natural animal manure and compost bought from Abu Dhabi Fertiliser Industries - even though the centre advised against it.
"Most farmers tend to use fertiliser based around locally produced compost, which is poorly broken down, and animal manure," said Mr Moule.
"It is an ideal breeding area for pests that we're trying to get rid of. They lay their eggs in it and farmers spread it around their trees."
But Mr Al Muhraibi plans to stick with his natural fertilisers, which he said were "always better".
Part of the programme also includes removing trees' side shoots, where palm weevils lay their eggs.
"We've got to have a nicely trimmed trunk so there's no way for them to enter the tree," said Mr Moule.
"But telling a farmer to remove something he's grown and throwing it away makes it hard for him to link it to better results."
Mr Al Muhraibi said: "There are two kinds [of side shoots] - the karoub, which I remove because it's bad for the tree, and the ayal for small palm trees, which I keep. I don't think karoub causes weevils though."
The centre advised him to remove the lot.
"Then I showed them a tree that had no side shoots but was infested with weevils," Mr Al Muhraibi said. "We know our trees and we know how to take care of them."
The centre also warns farmers about over-watering, having found from a study in Liwa that they were using up to 2,000 litres a day - from six to 11 times the recommended amount
"That's a lot of water that can be saved," said Mr Moule.
Here, at least, Mr Al Muhraibi is playing ball.
He has a drip-irrigation system that uses between 150 and 180 litres for each tree a day.
One of the FSC's main aims is to help to wean farmers off the subsidies to which they have long been accustomed.
"The mentality of the farmers is still one where they want the Government to provide everything," said Mr Moule.
But instead of using the centre's help, many farmers like Mr Al Muhraibi resort to other means to make a living.
"Al Foah Company buys my dates and exports them worldwide," he said. "I make a good profit from them and they advise me on good farming practices according to the season by text."
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BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Saturday
Borussia Dortmund v Eintracht Frankfurt (5.30pm kick-off UAE)
Bayer Leverkusen v Schalke (5.30pm)
Wolfsburg v Cologne (5.30pm)
Mainz v Arminia Bielefeld (5.30pm)
Augsburg v Hoffenheim (5.30pm)
RB Leipzig v Bayern Munich (8.30pm)
Borussia Monchengladbach v Freiburg (10.30pm)
Sunday
VfB Stuttgart v Werder Bremen (5.30pm)
Union Berlin v Hertha Berlin (8pm)
BORDERLANDS
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jamie Lee Curtis
Director: Eli Roth
Rating: 0/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Multitasking pays off for money goals
Tackling money goals one at a time cost financial literacy expert Barbara O'Neill at least $1 million.
That's how much Ms O'Neill, a distinguished professor at Rutgers University in the US, figures she lost by starting saving for retirement only after she had created an emergency fund, bought a car with cash and purchased a home.
"I tell students that eventually, 30 years later, I hit the million-dollar mark, but I could've had $2 million," Ms O'Neill says.
Too often, financial experts say, people want to attack their money goals one at a time: "As soon as I pay off my credit card debt, then I'll start saving for a home," or, "As soon as I pay off my student loan debt, then I'll start saving for retirement"."
People do not realise how costly the words "as soon as" can be. Paying off debt is a worthy goal, but it should not come at the expense of other goals, particularly saving for retirement. The sooner money is contributed, the longer it can benefit from compounded returns. Compounded returns are when your investment gains earn their own gains, which can dramatically increase your balances over time.
"By putting off saving for the future, you are really inhibiting yourself from benefiting from that wonderful magic," says Kimberly Zimmerman Rand , an accredited financial counsellor and principal at Dragonfly Financial Solutions in Boston. "If you can start saving today ... you are going to have a lot more five years from now than if you decide to pay off debt for three years and start saving in year four."
Match info:
Portugal 1
Ronaldo (4')
Morocco 0
Greatest of All Time
Starring: Vijay, Sneha, Prashanth, Prabhu Deva, Mohan
Confirmed%20bouts%20(more%20to%20be%20added)
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Profile of MoneyFellows
Founder: Ahmed Wadi
Launched: 2016
Employees: 76
Financing stage: Series A ($4 million)
Investors: Partech, Sawari Ventures, 500 Startups, Dubai Angel Investors, Phoenician Fund
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
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The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
Squad
Ali Kasheif, Salim Rashid, Khalifa Al Hammadi, Khalfan Mubarak, Ali Mabkhout, Omar Abdulrahman, Mohammed Al Attas, Abdullah Ramadan, Zayed Al Ameri (Al Jazira), Mohammed Al Shamsi, Hamdan Al Kamali, Mohammed Barghash, Khalil Al Hammadi (Al Wahda), Khalid Essa, Mohammed Shaker, Ahmed Barman, Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain), Al Hassan Saleh, Majid Suroor (Sharjah) Walid Abbas, Ahmed Khalil (Shabab Al Ahli), Tariq Ahmed, Jasim Yaqoub (Al Nasr), Ali Saleh, Ali Salmeen (Al Wasl), Hassan Al Muharami (Baniyas)
WIDE%20VIEW
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