The Green Morocco Plan (PMV) aims to increase the quality of life for farmers and to fight poverty. As agriculture is still considered Morocco’s primary economy, the kingdom is on a mission to modernize agriculture, encourage relevant investment, ensure food security, promote exports and the sales of local Moroccan products. In recent years, it also moved to strengthen local irrigation.
In summer 2019, the National Program of Water Economy in Irrigation (PNEEI) a PMV branch, reported it successfully optimized over 550,000 hectares of Morocco’s irrigated landscapes with a new localized system. Previously, the majority of irrigated lands in Morocco relied on the surface and sprinkler system. The new system was implemented to reduce water consumption, the main factor in limited agricultural growth and higher profits for farmers. The news has been well received by the farming community and Green Plan Proponents are impressed. In 2018, when the localized irrigation system was first introduced, only 10,000 hectares were organized and the strategy looked worrisome. Investors and farmers alike were relieved to see the quick turnaround.
The Morocco Green Plan has agriculture objectives structured around seven pillars. Growing agriculture, organizing a new model and developing it, promoting private investment to attract an annual investment of 10 billons MAD ( approximately $1 billion USD ) contracting relationships between stakeholders and farmers, implementing sustainability programs, and creating a new sector framework. It aims to complete most goals by 2020. The newest irrigation announcement ensures that the project is moving in a positive direction.
In 2018, a statement issued in Meknes at the International Forum for Agriculture (SIAM) Association in Morocco, “Morocco’s agricultural output reached MAD 125 billion ($13.05 billion) in 2018. This is a 60% increase since the start of the Green Plan.”