Moroccan Cereal Farmers See Hope as Rains Boost Sowing to 4 Million Hectares

Thanks to the rains of the last decade of November, hope is reborn among the farmers. They have made up for the delay in sowing at the beginning of the campaign. Thus, 4.10 million hectares have been sown in cereals, with nearly three-quarters carried out in one month, according to l’Economiste in its edition of the day. Soft wheat, the most consumed, occupies 44% of the area, barley 34% and durum wheat 22%.

Moreover, the irrigated area could reach half or more of the 75 million quintals retained as a hypothesis for the 2021 Finance Act, it is estimated, while knowing that the dam reserve has seen an increase, with a better forecast of replenishment by the snow reservoir.

Furthermore, with the latest rains, the rainfall deficit has been filled with an average cumulative of 180.6 mm, an increase of 5% compared to the 30-year average of 172.2 mm and 50% compared to the previous campaign which was 120.3 mm at the same period. The same goes for the reserve of dams for agricultural use, which has seen a filling rate reaching 99% in Loukkos, 62% in Gharb, 36% in Moulouya, 32% in Souss-Massa, 28% in Haouz, 21% in Tadla and Ouarzazate, 17% in Tafilalet and 13% in Doukkala.

At the same time, the latest rains have increased sales of agricultural inputs, especially seeds and basal fertilizers, and have had a good impact on the evolution of the agricultural campaign, with the improvement of the plant cover of rangelands and that of fruit growing and the improvement of fruit calibration. However, the remarkable water deficit and the inappropriate spatio-temporal distribution at the beginning of the 2020/2021 agricultural campaign delayed the sowing of autumn crops and negatively affected the state of rangelands, the daily noted.