World Bank approves $4M grant to support Morocco’s climate-resilient agriculture

The World Bank’s executive board has approved a new $4 million grant for Morocco to provide additional financing for the country’s agricultural transformation program aimed at strengthening climate resilience and improving food safety and quality.

The grant will be financed by the Livable Planet Fund (LPF) and complements a $250 million package approved in December 2024, the World Bank said in a statement.

The additional funding is intended to help address constraints faced by small and medium-sized farmers and accelerate Morocco’s transition toward conservation agriculture, particularly in rainfed cereal production.

According to the World Bank, the agricultural transformation program will benefit about 1,200 farmers across 20,000 hectares. Support will be delivered through digital electronic vouchers designed to reduce production costs by providing access to mechanization services, including direct seeding, as well as climate-resilient seed varieties.

The World Bank said the agri-food sector plays a vital role in Morocco’s economy and rural employment, noting that successive droughts have exposed the vulnerability of rainfed cereal farming and underscored the need for more resilient production systems.

“This additional financing supports the expansion of conservation agriculture to stabilize yields and improve soil and water management,” the statement said.

The program will also strengthen project management, monitoring, and evaluation systems to track adoption rates, measure gains in productivity and farmer income, and quantify climate mitigation benefits, including reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

The World Bank added that its technical assistance will support the design and scaling up of the electronic voucher system and assess its impact.

In December last year, the World Bank approved a $250 million grant to support Morocco’s agricultural transformation and efforts to address the impacts of climate change.