Morocco’s Cereal Production Plummets 57% Amid Drought Conditions

4 September 2020 – byGinette · 1 min read

The Directorate of Strategy and Statistics of the Department of Agriculture conducted a telephone survey on cereal yields with producers. It emerges that the final production of the three main cereals for the 2019-2020 season has experienced a 57% drop.

The area sown for this 2019-2020 cereal season is estimated at 4.34 million hectares. This represents 17.7 million quintals of soft wheat, 7.9 million quintals of durum wheat and 6.4 million quintals of barley.

Nature has been unkind during this campaign, as rainfall at the end of May 2020 was limited to 239 mm, a 31% decrease compared to the average 30 years ago and 19% compared to the 2019-2020 season.

According to information received from producers, only the germination stage of the cereals benefited from adequate rainfall, while tillering and stem elongation suffered from the scarcity of rain, respectively for 20 and 40 days. This explains the drop in the harvested area during this campaign.

Category: Economy

Keywords:

Agriculture Deficit