Morocco Expands Drip Irrigation to 600,000 Hectares, Surpassing Global Average

In 2008, when the roadmap of the Green Morocco Plan (PMV) was launched, only 160,000 hectares were irrigated. This figure is now over 600,000 hectares. Thus, Morocco now has a micro-irrigation rate of around 7%, about double the international average. Although the country is still far from Israel, the world leader, with 75% of its public spaces and agricultural plantations micro-irrigated, it largely exceeds France, the leading European agricultural power, with an irrigation rate of around 5%.

If Morocco has been able to achieve this feat, it is partly thanks to the subsidy put in place by the state as part of the PMV. This program, which ended a few months ago, has been extended by one year, pending the establishment of the broad outlines of the new mechanism in line with the Green Generation Strategy 2020-2030.

However, this mechanism will be selective and more rigorous, according to sources close to the file cited by Challenge, stressing that an envelope will be set up for the protection and maintenance of the effort to equip in water-saving irrigation techniques, until reaching the bar of one million micro-irrigated hectares by 2027, in line with the goal of the National Drinking Water Supply and Irrigation Program.