Tropentag, September 18 - 20, 2019 in Kassel "Filling gaps and removing traps for sustainable resources development"

Facing Desertification in Egypt

ESIIC, Egypt

Abstract

Sugars of dates as another alternative source of sugar rather than sugars from sugar cane and sugar beet. Egypt suffers from a shortage in sugar production whereas there is a gap between the produced and consumed sugar measured by more than one million ton annually. This quantity imported by Egypt from outside and cost the national treasury huge amounts of money. Despite this there is a solution for this problem that save the money consumed in importing sugar. This solution is extracting sugar from dates which unfit for the human feeding. Egypt produces about 1.5 million tons of dates annually according to FAO in 2018. Although Egypt is considered a leader land in producing dates but it does not export any amount as most of the produced dates goes to animal feeding because it poor quality of dates. These low quality of dates is containing a sugar ratio ranging from 60%-80%. If the sugar in the low quality dates were extracted, we can fill the gap that existed. The sugars found in dates are mostly monosaccharide sugars (Glucose+Fructose) which are very difficult to separate as crystals but they can be separated as concentrated sugar syrup. So it is possible to use these sugars in the confectionery industries which consume a part of sugars produced in Egypt approximately equal to the gap quantity.

Keywords: Date, sugar

Contact Address: Magdy Elghannam, ESIIC, Tanta, Egypt, e-mail: magdy_elghannamyahoo.com