Endless modernisation: Power and knowledge in the Green Morocco Plan

Abstract

In 2008, in the aftermath of the World Food Crisis and in a context of an unfolding New Green Revolution for Africa, Morocco launched the Green Morocco Plan to ‘modernise’ its agricultural sector, thereby making the latter the main driver for economic growth and for the alleviation of rural poverty. Yet, the technicist-productivist rationale of the Green Morocco Plan, characteristic of New Green Revolution modernisation schemes, renders any positive socio-ecological outcome unlikely. Hence, recent studies of the Green Morocco Plan have focused on its impacts on food security, inequality and environment. However, how the Green Morocco Plan's rationale is (re)produced within a given set of socio-ecological, material relations has to date attracted relatively little attention. This study, therefore, explores the power-knowledge dynamics of the modernisation discourse within the Green Morocco Plan as a driver of socio-ecological change. Bringing together insights from political ecology, critical development and agri-food studies, we show how the entangled set of ideological, material, political and technical processes embodied within the Green Morocco Plan favours a reductionist view of agricultural development as increasing yields and profits. In so doing, such a view perpetuates efforts to ‘modernise’ smallholder/family farming.

Developmental discourses of transition in the Indian transport sector: A corpus linguistic survey of the literature

“…In a paper on developments in Sweden, Hagbert, Nyblom, and Isaksson (2021) for example, note that 'crisis'-oriented discourses are beginning to form cracks in dominant narratives, and may even lead to the emergence of alternative discourses about change as transformation. Even more recently, Mathez and Loftus (2022) critically challenge the powerknowledge dynamics of the (eco) modernisation discourse in the Moroccan green strategy and how these lead to a perpetuation of reductionist emphasis on growth and development. Such studies offer hope that these dominant discourses may be losing their grip.…”

Entangled Future Im/mobilities

“…In the second case, people's mobilities helped transfer the planned adaptation ideas of the government and transformed them into autonomous adaptation by farmers. However, Studies have also questioned the outcomes of the irrigation program in Morocco (Mathez and Loftus 2023;Venot et al 2014;Alonso et al 2019). As seen even in Skoura M'Daz, conversion to drip systems have led farmers to extend their lands, or switch to using more groundwater than surface water, defeating the purpose of the program.…”

“It keeps eating at you, little by little”: a photo essay on drought experiences across Morocco's agro-pastoral landscapes

“…These approaches come with advantages but also draw criticism, for their modernist rational and failure to account for smallholders' realities and needs (Giller et al. , 2015; Mathez and Loftus, 2022). They are not the right solution for everyone, as the complexities of Morocco's agricultural sector and changing climate require nuanced and locally appropriate innovation.…”

“…For instance, with ambitious tree-planting and agricultural intensification strategies (the Green Morocco Plan (GMP) and its successor, the Green Generation Strategy), and the promotion of irrigation technology and no-till agricultural practices, through (inter-) national research centres and EU funded research networks. These approaches come with advantages but also draw criticism, for their modernist rational and failure to account for smallholders' realities and needs (Giller et al, 2015;Mathez and Loftus, 2022). They are not the right solution for everyone, as the complexities of Morocco's agricultural sector and changing climate require nuanced and locally appropriate innovation.…”