Morocco’s agricultural policies contributed to water management crisis, says report

Morocco continues to struggle with an ongoing lack of food security and depletion of its water resources, according to the “Water Security for Food Security” study published on Thursday by the Center for Public Dialogue and Contemporary Studies.

The three primary topics of the study were: Royal addresses on public policies for water security; institutional reforms in the management of water resources; Morocco’s Green Plan; and agrarian reforms that contributed to the crisis in water management.

The state’s agricultural policies “launched the competition for groundwater and support for agricultural expansion and individual pumping stations established by new investors to grow products with high marketing value,” according to the report.

The Green Morocco Plan’s positive effects came at the expense of food security, “deepening farmers’ social vulnerability, depriving them of their water rights, and perpetuating the race for resources while generating social conflicts.”

The severity of the water problem “takes a major position in the real challenges that Morocco faces now and in the future,” with “confrontation plans in various regions of Morocco” being insufficient to address it.

Accordingly, the study called for a new social contract to “build a sustainable economy.”

Additionally, any flaw in the issue of water security will result in a flaw in the overall nutrition and food security as well.

Therefore, Morocco is required to make water security a key component of its plans and policies, together with food security, which is another aspect of Moroccan security.

Modern market-driven agrarian reform undermines social cohesion and poses a risk to natural resource sources, including resource scarcity and groundwater depletion.

The local people managing these resources are not given top priority in development plans because national and international financial institutions are about to take control from local communities.

Government assistance for agriculture “prioritized the market economy, promoted fierce resource competition among investors, and alienated some small farmers for being unable to keep up with the agricultural production reform policy brought about by the Green Morocco Plan program,” according to the study.

Additionally, in many agricultural districts of Morocco, excessive pumping forced small farmers to compete fiercely with investment farmers whose water practices create depletion of the underground water.