Water Scarcity in Morocco

Endless modernisation: Power and knowledge in the Green Morocco Plan

“…Indeed, smallholder/family farming is subject to multiple, unsystematic and possibly contradictory ‘state effects’ (Meehan et al, 2014; Mitchell, 1991). This echoes the mutually contrasting agricultural development processes – industrialisation and repeasantisation – that contributes to ‘the overwhelming impression of chaos and disorganisation that currently seems to characterize world agriculture’ (Van der Ploug, 2008: 1). Hence, rather than constructing a coherent text out of a reality that seems much more complex, contentious and even hazardous, we outline three possible interpretations that time and further analysis may confirm or discard.…”

“…Consequently, food insecurity has been reframed by scientists, donors, institutions and states as a technical problem that can be resolved through market regulations and increased productivity (Jarosz, 2012; Moragues-Faus and Marsden, 2017). Hence, although interest in smallholder/family farming is growing, and although it is now more and more frequently stated that smallholder/family farming produces the bulk of the world's food (Jarosz, 2012; Netting, 1993; Van der Ploug, 2008), the dominant discourse remains the same: ‘a “more efficient” industrial food system is needed to feed the world’ (GRAIN, 2014: 3).…”

“…Smallholder/family farmingthe bulk of Morocco's agricultureremains essential for food security within the country. Yet the sector faces many challenges including a negative agricultural trade balance, high vulnerability to climatic variations (AAA, 2016), increasing degradation of natural resources (notably, soil erosion and acute water scarcity (Taheripour et al, 2020)), alongside poverty and precarity among the country's rural population (HCP, 2018). Agricultural 'modernisation' policies, enacted during the French protectorate, divided Morocco's territory into 'useful' and 'useless' and have resulted in profound territorial asymmetries and social inequalities (Jouve, 2002;Kadiri and El Farah, 2013;Rivet, 2012).…”

Understanding the Climate–Water–Energy–Food Nexus and the Transition Towards a Circular Economy: The Case of Morocco

“…This share is expected to be below 500 m3/in by 2030. The surface water is estimated at 18 Gm3/year and groundwater at 4.2 Gm 3 /year [18]. More than half of these resources are concentrated in the northern and central Atlantic watersheds with an average annual intake of the order of 11.3 Gm 3 /year [12,13].…”

“…Since its independence, Morocco prioritized the expansion of irrigated areas, which relied on a dams' policy that started officially in 1967. Forty years later, the country counts 149 large-scale dams with a capacity exceeding 19 billion m3 and 255 hill dams [17], between 1,500,000 and 1,700,000 hectares [18,21] of irrigated perimeters, and yet it still suffers from water scarcity. By 2019, 585 000 hectares were equipped with drip irrigation technology [19].…”