Morocco’s Red Meat Industry Thrives, Seeks Further Growth Despite Strong Performance

The Secretary General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Mohammed Sadiki, presented the state of play regarding the enviable position of livestock in agricultural production. The annual turnover is estimated at 35.5 billion DH for a total herd of more than 31 million head. Sheep account for two-thirds of the total, followed by goats, 6.1 million, cattle, 3.3 million and camels, 183,000 head, indicates l’Economiste.

These advances noted stem from the result of efforts to improve sheep and goat breeds. All these good indices reflect the results of the program contract between the supervisory authority and the interprofessional federation of red meats. Thus, the number of breeders and reproducers is estimated at a thousand. A rate that is justified by the subsidies that the State grants to the sector. Since January 2019, aid has largely increased, reaching 4,000 DH/head for bovine reproducers and between 700 and 800 DH/head for sheep, 450 and 500 DH/head for goats and camels at 5,000 DH/head.

In the wake of the consolidation of the achievements of the Green Morocco Plan, the future of the sector is more or less guaranteed, particularly with the implementation of the new agricultural strategy "Generation Green 2020-2030". The president of Anoc, Abderrahmane Majdoubi, was pleased "with the level of partnership that binds the profession to the Ministry of Agriculture as well as the support provided to the sheep and goat sector, particularly in this period of health crisis".

With the improvement of the structures supervised by the association over the past 10 years, the number of groups has increased from 58 in 2008 to 166 in 2019. The members have increased from 4,714 in 2008 to 14,620 breeders in 2019. A project to create a training center for livestock trades will be launched soon, to facilitate integration into the new strategy. This is a project financed by the "Charafa" fund of the MCA-Morocco agency and the Millennium Challenge Corporation of the United States of America and which will be managed by the profession and the Ministry of Agriculture, reports L’Économiste.