Moroccan Strawberry Festival

Here is an article from al-Arabiya on an international festival of strawberry farmers that just took place in Moulay Bousselham, Morocco .
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Strawberry festival in Morocco informs producers of better methods

Sunday, 25 March 2012

By Noora Faraj
Al Arabiya with Agencies

The second International Strawberry Festival came to close on Sunday in the Moroccan sea resort of Moulay Bousselham after having attracted participants from across the globe, including Peru, the birthplace of strawberries.

“Through this fair, we seek to improve both the quality and the production of strawberries and also to make small farmers aware of the necessity to organise themselves in the shape of co-operatives or associations so they could benefit from exporting their product and the high earnings of exportations,” said Chaoui Belassal, chairman of Moulay Bousselham community council.

The festival spotlighted the fruit from Morocco’s Gharb (West) region and acquainted farmers with advanced irrigation methods and the hazards of misusing pesticides and insecticides.

Academics such as Professor Abderrahman Tenkoul of Ibn Tofail University said their involvement was crucial to the festival as scientific research could uncover ways to improve quality standards while safeguarding consumer health.

The Nalsya Foundation for Development, Environment, and Social Action, a local non-governmental organization, collaborated with Moulay Bousselham communal council in coming up with newer, more efficient irrigation techniques, which could potentially save up to 35 percent of water usage.

Over 3,300 hectares have been devoted to strawberry farming in Morocco, mostly in the Northwestern area of the country.

A large proportion of harvest is exported, and the strawberry industry boasts 25,000 workers, predominantly women from rural areas.

The strawberry industry has observed an increase in production, but a formal union has yet to be established to offer support. Farmers such as Allal Lekhal await governmental response.

“We export around 30 percent of our production and the state should help us. This year, the frost damaged strawberries as well as avocados, bananas, oranges and all the other fruits and vegetables. This is why we need help. So far, we have not got any,” Lekhal said.

Moroccan strawberry farmers remain optimistic however, as they take advantage of their country’s favorable climate and soil conditions, over rivaling European neighbor, Spain, where winter is more detrimental to crops.

This North African country produces 140,000 annually, and exports around 30,000, mainly to the European Union.

Morocco Expects Fine 2009 Harvest

It must be remembered that Morocco's economy is highly dependent on agriculture.
Here is a recent article that appeared on Middle East Online about this years harvest. It seems as if all of that heavy rain has brought a great benefit.

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Morocco expects fine 2009 harvest


Agriculture Minister vows to speed up implementation of ambitious Green Morocco Plan launched in 2008.



RABAT - Good rains will produce a bumper cereal crop in Morocco this year, with an expected 102 million quintals (10.2 million metric tons) due to be harvested, Agriculture Minister Aziz Akhenouch said Tuesday.

"The 2009 harvest will be abundant, even excellent," Akhenouch said at the opening of the north African country's second agricultural congress in the central town of Meknes. "This is very good news all Moroccans have been waiting for."

Akhenouch also vowed to speed up implementation of an ambitious farm plan the government launched in 2008, investing some 12 billion dirhams (about one billion euros / 1.4 billion dollars) in the first year.

Investments in the scheme, known as the Green Morocco Plan, have targeted animal breeding along with cereal, fruit and olive production.

In the future, the country is counting on receiving 10 billion dirhams yearly in national and foreign investments in agricultural production to assure food security for all, King Mohammed VI said in a message to participants.

"The Green Plan is aimed at eradicating poverty in the rural world," Ahmed Hajjaji, head of the Agency for Agricultural Development (ADA), said on the sidelines of the congress.

Poverty remains a key issue in Morocco, where police clashed with demonstrators protesting high food prices in 2007. Members of the Moroccan Human Rights Association were detained when they organised the rallies.

The Green Plan aims to almost triple Morocco's gross domestic income from agriculture to 100 billion dirhams (nine billion euros) a year by 2020, compared to the current 38 billion dirhams.

It allows for regions to specialise their production depending on their soil and climate, with cereals and citrus fruit in the verdant north, red meat in central Morocco, olives in the south and goat and camel's cheese in the Sahara.

The ADA is responsible for implementing the Green Plan, under which Morocco has been divided into 16 agricultural sectors, with 1,500 priority projects identified.

Attended by Moroccan farmers and members of the food industry, the conference came on the eve of an international agriculture fair, also in Meknes.

Force Feeding Morocco : EU and US Free Trade Schemes

This article from the English language version of Le Monde Diplomatique explains some the logic behind the Free trade agreements Morocco has gone into with the EU and the US and what they will mean for the average and working-poor farmer. Also, think about what it will mean for the quality and overall healthiness of Moroccan food.

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Social and ecological cost of Morocco’s agribusiness policy

Why Morocco’s Food is not Secure
by Cécile Raimbeau

In 1996, in the wake of the Euro-Mediterranean Conference in Barcelona, Morocco signed a partnership agreement with the European Union which came into effect in 2000. It’s officially based on the principle of reciprocity. It specifies free access to EU markets for Moroccan manufactured goods in exchange for Morocco progressively dismantling its tariff scheme for European industrial goods. The liberalisation of the market in services is a key part of the mechanism, which aims to establish a free-trade zone by 2012. “When the agreement on services has been signed, we will have taken an important step forward,” said Bruno Dethomas, head of the EU delegation, at the close of the first phase of negotiations in Rabat in late February.

For the moment, Moroccan agricultural goods imported into the EU are subject to reduced or zero-rated customs duty and minimal entry tariffs, though subject to strict quotas and time limits. “While reciprocity is being imposed for industrial goods, an exception is being made for agriculture,” observes Professor Najib Akesbi, an economist at the Hassan II Agronomic and Veterinarian Institute. “In other words, free trade where Morocco hasn’t much chance of competing with Europe and protectionism where it’s competitive.”

Morocco’s agreement with the United States is resolutely free trade, including in the area of agriculture. It was ratified in January 2005, triggering a countdown that will lead to the opening of the Moroccan market to more competitive, subsidised American products. The agreement was concluded after 13 months of negotiations behind closed doors, which put paid to any public or parliamentary debate. Civil society organisations’ call for a rally in support of freedom of information provoked a crackdown by the authorities.

And yet, pursuing a free trade policy risks increasing the country’s food dependence, hitting the country’s poorest peasants hardest. The cereal sector is set to decline progressively in the face of European and American competition, not least as a result of agriculture minister Aziz Akhannouch’s “Green Morocco” plan, announced in April 2008, which has set the policy for the next 10 years and prioritises export crops such as tomatoes and strawberries.

The first phase of the plan, which targets “the aggressive development of high-value-added, high-productivity agriculture” depends on the construction of a “modern agricultural sector”. This is made difficult by the problem of land availability and its division in very small parcels. It aims to aggregate land holdings under a system in which small- and medium-sized farmers are linked by contract to “high-performance operators”. Though described as innovative, the system more closely resembles a feudal system, according to Professor Akesbi.

It’s true that the second phase of the plan provides for support for small-scale agriculture. But with just one-seventh of the funding of the first phase, there’s a risk it will amount to no more than a few social investments schemes to enable the 70% of peasants with very small landholdings to keep their heads above water. As for the challenge of water resource management, the proposed response is privatisation throughout large irrigated areas.