6. Moroccan Agriculture Facing Climate Change: Adaptation and Local Distribution of the Value Added

Agriculture is the principal lever of economic and social development in Morocco. Since 1998, drought has become structural in the country and climatic conditions, especially rainfall, were marked by an imbalance among different regions and a heterogeneous distribution between seasons. This generates problems of agricultural production in rural areas especially in Southern Morocco which is characterized by arid climate. The rural world in general is confronted to major challenges due to natural risks (drought); low economic growth; high poverty rate and jeopardized natural resources sustainability due to overexploitation. Some production systems so-called “traditional” have shown their adaptation to environmental constraints. It would be necessary to identify them and evaluate their capacity to cope with climate change. Rural areas of Southern Morocco are underprivileged in terms of infrastructure and water resources availability. Nevertheless they present an important bio-geographic diversity of natural resources namely, Argan tree, prickly pear, honey, olives, dates, capers, almonds, carobs, saffron, roses, medicinal and aromatic plants, etc. This local richness, combined with a culture of local know-how, offers a variety of regional products adapted to the arid climate. From the economic point of view, Southern Morocco and its products constitute an important source of income or at least of essential nutrition for the local population and are by themselves a pillar of a traditional agricultural system, which needs to be preserved and valued with the aim of promoting the economic development of these regions. The National Initiative for Human Development and the Green Morocco Plan launched in Morocco in 2005 and 2008 respectively, are policies to encourage rural and social development projects with the objective of improving the income of small farmers by infrastructure development, rural youth training and technical assistance. These initiatives contribute in an effective way to the stabilization of the populations in rural zones while improving their living conditions.