Morocco rainfall has farmers hopeful

Autumn rains could boost the output of Morocco’s main economic driver.

By Hassan Benmehdi for Magharebia in Casablanca – 08/10/12

[AFP/Fadel Senna] The agricultural sector provides jobs for one out of every two economically active Moroccans.

The rainfall in late September was good news for Moroccan farmers after a long stretch of high temperatures in some areas, where highs exceeded 40 °C, leaving dry farm lands.

The weather situation, with the arrival of the autumn rainfall, is starting to change, explained Mohamed Belaouchi at the National Meteorological Directorate. Rain has reached 24mm in the city of Tan-Tan in the south (the equivalent of the monthly average in this region).

This rain has had a positive impact on the land and has encouraged many farmers to start plowing.

Rahhal, Jilali and Haj Driss, three livestock farmers from the El Haouz region in Marrakech, expressed their happiness to Magharebia but also their desire to have more rain to forget the trying agricultural year of 2011-12 and start fresh.

“These high temperatures that lasted for weeks and months forced many farmers either to stop their activities or to run into debt to be able to buy fuel and butane gas and buy water for their crops,” El Haj Driss said.

For Rahhal, rain is a good thing for everyone involved in farming: “This is even more true when it falls at the right time.”

Jilali pointed out that the first fall rains help make the land more fertile: “It’s essential for the crop in terms of quality as well as quantity.”

For agricultural engineer Abdelkader El Hachmi, it’s a well-known fact in the agricultural sector that the first autumn rainfall is fundamental to the plowing and the preparation of the agricultural season.

Agriculture in Morocco is crucial to the country. As Moroccans say, “When it rains, it works.”

Agriculture Minister Abdelaziz Akhannouch said that cereal production in the kingdom dropped almost 50% compared to 2010-11 due to the scarce rain during the 2012 winter months.

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“This decrease of production affected economic growth, a projection then lowered by the Benkirane government – bringing it for 2012 from a 4.8% growth last year to 3%,” he said.

On September 26th, his counterpart, Economic and Finance Minister Nizar Baraka specified while on television that rain had a major impact on the growth forecast for this year’s financial laws.

The agricultural sector in Morocco provides jobs for one out of two economically active people; in other words 45% of the economically active population of the country and about three to four million people in the agricultural field. It also ensures work for the 60,000 to 100,000 workforce in the food processing field.

Agricultural growth can contribute to the decrease of poverty through the increase of income for farming families. The sector however also suffers from several constraints, particularly illiteracy and weather hazards that impact roughly 90% of the useful farming surface.

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