RuralStruc

RuralStruc

Moroccan agriculture:Constraints and new

challenges

N.Akesbi, D.Benatya, N.El Aoufi

Dakar – M’bour, 12 April 2006

Plan

1. SituationMoroccan agriculture and its constraints…

2. Reminder of agriculture policiesFrom the involvement of the State to its disengagement…

3. Questions and tomorrow’s stakes…Risks and dangers of short-sighted liberalization

Moroccan agriculture:Main characteristics

30 M inhabitants, almost 45% in the rural sectorSAU: 8.7 Mha, only 1 Mha irrigated and 3 Mha receive more than 400 mm of water per year. Still an agriculture largely «dual» («modern»/«traditional»), and «domestic»15% of GDP and 40% of the active population A more important and diversified production, but unable to feed the population: dangerous food dependency (I/X: -50%)

1. Situation: Moroccan agriculture and its constraints

1.1. Deficiencies of a production still handicapped by the climate constraints

1.2. Trade deficits and increasing food dependency1.3. Dangerous degradation of natural resources1.4. Human resources: poverty and analphabetism1.5. Land tenure structures disadvantageous to

modernization1.6. Farming and productive systems still little

intensive1.7. A sector badly articulated with the rest of the

economy1.8. Insufficient financial resources and unequally

distributed

1.1.Production deficiencies

PIB et PIB Agricole: Evolution des taux de croissance moyens par décennies

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000

%

PIB

PIBA

GDP and Agriculture GDP:

Evolution of average growth rates by decades.

Evolution du PIB Agricole par habitant

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1960

1962

1964

1966

1968

1970

1972

1974

1976

1978

1980

1982

1984

1986

1988

1990

1992

1994

1996

1998

2000

2002

Dh cst, 1980

Evolution of Agriculture GDP per inhabitant

Evolution de la production céréalière par habitant

050

100150200250300350400450500

Kg

Evolution of the cereal production per inhabitant

Evolution de diverses productions par habitant

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

1961-65 1966-70 1971-75 1976-80 1981-85 1986-90 1991-95 1996-00 20001-03

Légumineuses

Olives

Betterave

Kg

Evolution des productions maraîchères et agrumicoles par habitant

0

50

100

150

200

250

1961-65 1966-70 1971-75 1976-80 1981-85 1986-90 1991-95 1996-00 20001-03

Maraîchage

Agrumes

Kg

Evolution des productions animales par habitant

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

1961-65 1966-70 1971-75 1976-80 1981-85 1986-90 1991-95 1996-00 20001-03

Lait

Viandes rouges

Viandes blanches

Kg-L

Evolution of animal productions per inhabitant

Evolution des rendements des céréales principales, 1931-2003

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16qx/ha

Blé dur

Blé tendre

Orge

Evolution des rendements des légumineuses

0

12

3

45

6

7

89

10

1961-65

1966-70

1971-75

1976-80

1981-85

1986-90

1991-95

1996-00

20001-03

qx/ha

-8

-3

2

7

12

1981 1883 1985 1987 1989 1991 1993 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003

PIB agricole PIB global

Forte dépendance du PIB des aléas de la production agricole%

1.2. Trade deficits…

Evolution du taux de couverture de la balance agroalimentaire

0

50

100

150

200

250%

Evolution of the reserve ratio in the agro-food balance

And food dependency

Taux d'autosuffisance de certains produits de base(moyennes quinquennales)

0

20

40

60

80

100%

Céréales

Pr laitiers

Sucre

Huiles vég.

Self-sufficiency rate of certain basic products

(five-year averages)

1.3. Degradation of natural resources

Tendency to a « mining » type of exploitation of the natural resources (Plan ql)Limitation of the arable land and land pressure(1 Active Ag = 2.3 ha; 5.2 (Tun), 14.1 (Sp), 22.8 (Fra)Desertification, erosion and salinization of soil…* 5.5 Mha under risk of erosion* Annual loss of 22 000 ha of arable land

(urbanization, overexploitation of soils…)* Annual loss of 31 000 ha of forest* Area estimated at 93% «medium to highly degraded»

Water…3 Mha in «favorable rainfall areas» (+400 mm/an)

Irregularity of rainfall

Decrease of available quantities/inhab: 700 m3

(1185 m3 in 1990 and 651 m3 in 2025)In 2005, Morocco was classified as in « hydric stress»

Annual cost of degradation: 4.6% of GDP in 2000

1.4. Human resources: poverty and analphabetism

HDI, 2005: Morocco, 124th (0.631, average LDCs: 0.694)Morocco: The index is the lower of the Mediterranean

Le Maroc dans la région méditerranéenne, d'après son IDH

0,5000,5500,600

0,6500,7000,7500,8000,850

0,9000,9501,000

In the rural world…

An HDI half lower to the urban oneAlmost 2/3 of poor population lives in rural areasAnalphabetism and low schoolingLack of infrastructures: roads, potable water, electricity…Deficits in medical and sanitary coverage (infant mortality, long distance to sanitary centers…)A population of analphabet and old farmers:* 81% analphabet (76% of SAU)* 68% are over 45 years old (45% more than 55 years)

1.5. Land tenure structures disadvantageous to modernization

Small size of exploitations: average of 6.1 ha But 71% are -5ha and –25% of SAUParceling: each exploitation has 6.7 parcels of 0.9ha25% of exploitations has an archaic status: Collective, Guich, Habous, State…Melk: joint tenancy, defects of registration… Micro-exploitations (-3ha in rainfall areas and 1ha in irrigation)Under the viability threshold41% of exploitations and 5% of SAU

1.6. Productive systems little intensive

Disparities produced by the policy of damsFertilizers: 37 kg/ha (90 Kg on average in the world)Selected seeds: Used by 16% of exploitationsMechanization: 1 tractor per 225 ha cultivated (versus 1 tractor per 92 ha in the neighboring countries of the South of the Mediterranean and world average of 1 per 57 ha),Reduction of half of the unities sold: 2380 between 1986 and 1990 to 1070 between 1999 and 2003.

Evolution de la consommation des engrais(milliers de tonnes, unités fertilisants)

0

100

200

300

400

Evolution des ventes de tracteurs

0

1000

2000

3000

4000Unités

1.7. A sector badly articulated with the rest of the economy

Strong dependency regarding equipment and external inputs (ex: cost in currency of tomato: 64%)Weak integration of the agro-food industryProblems of commercial circuits, domestically and exportsMultiples deficiencies:*Absence of structured distribution circuits*Shortcoming of recognized quality norms*Weakness of professional organizations*Failure of conservation infrastructures, of transportation and of freight…

1.8. Insufficient and unequally distributed financial resources

Decrease of public resources affected by agriculture (from 20 to 10% currently)Hydro-agriculture investments are still predominant Vicious circle of investment and financingWeakness of private financing: CAM (14-15% of financial needs in agriculture) and commercial banks (3%)

The challenge of opening up…

Is this agriculture, which is more a «way of life» than an economic activity, “summoned” to pick up on the challenge of the opening up to competition…

Is it ready to do so?What are the chances of catching up?How to succeed in 5 years with a reform process that did not happen in 50 years?

2. Reminder of agriculture policiesFrom the involvement of the State to its withdrawal…Policy of dams and its consequences: Investments, management, credits and subsidies, fiscal issues, commercialization… Structural adjustment policies and its failures: Withdrawal of the state, liberalization, privatization..Inflation of strategies and lack of vision…

Double impasse of a double strategy:Import-substitution and Export Promotion

3. The questions and tomorrow’s stakes…

Risks and dangers of a short-sighted liberalization

3.1. What food security?What are the risks and impacts of the exchange liberalization in the country’s equilibrium?

3.2. What State withdrawal? 3.3. Prices and subsidies:

What regularization for what competitiveness?3.4. Environment: What inheritance are we going

to leave to our children?3.5. What State for what regulation?

3.1. What food security?

Food Security according to the IFIs:A global and bookkeeping approach…Food Security according to the WFO:Availability + AccessibilityThe later raises questions linked to consumption models, to income, to governance systems…It necessarily leads to the concept of Food Sovereignty…

Food sovereigntyThis concept raises the question:Who is going to produce to satisfy what needs?

Otherwise, food sovereignty states a Right, the right of a population, in the framework of the State, or a Union of States, to provide itself with the means to produce for itself its own nutrition.

In the end, it’s the right to define an agriculture policy and to provide the means to implement it…

What food sovereignty?

Liberalization of the rotations and choice of the farmers

Ex. of sugar cultures: Surface of sugar cultures has stagnated and Bet low, and as the rdts stagnate, the self-sufficiency rate decreases from 64% to 52% (between 1986/90 and 2000-03).

What « Strategic threshold» is it necessary to preserve for the food sovereignty?

How to reconcile the objectives/interests of the peasants and those of the country?

Policy choices or economic decisions?

Exchange liberalization: What impact in the country balance?

Lack of competitiveness of the Moroccan agriculture as compared to the performing and State subsidized agricultures

Last study of the WB: «Sensible negative impacts on poor rural population in certain regions and for certain types of households, impacts that should be taken into consideration by social protection policies»(Households already vulnerable; Regions of Chaouia-Ouardigha, Rabat, Tadla-Azilal, Meknès-Tafilalet)

Two important questions…Beyond the quality of quantitative studies, two

important questions are introduced:

What is the reaction capacity for what type of exploitations?Is it only an issue of «social treatment»?

Three profiles of exploitations in face of liberalization…Non-viable micro-exploitations (-3ha in pluvial and 1ha in irrigation, 41% of active population and half of the rural population)Cereals, vegetables

Competitive exploitations: A portion of the big ones (2% and 22% of lands) and of SMEOpportunities for vegetables, some industrial and fruit cultures (preserved vegetables, aromatic plants, citrus fruits, olive oil, wine grapes…)

Exploitations to «upgrade»: A portion of the big and the SME ones

All vegetable and animal productions…

Is it only a question of «social treatment»?

The stakes: the «programmed» disappearance of hundreds of exploitations and its implications at all levels. How to manage such a transfer of population, which modifies the urban-rural balance?It will be a global disruption, starting with the reconsideration of demographic and regional balances, continues with the economic and social reordering, and should uncork a new political and geostrategic chance …That said, do we have the means of an aid to income?

3.2. What State withdrawal?

A withdrawal that has often created more of a «void» than the long expected «shifts»

In a context of insufficient means…

The private sector didn’t know or couldn’t secure the shifts so necessaryThe professional organizations has not progressed much And «freedom» has not led either to more «choices» nor to more «capacities» (A.Sen)

What State withdrawal?

The result has been:

Backward step in the management of production and producersStagnation, even the recess of the modernization efforts of exploitations and intensification of the conditions of productionInadequate and little rational choices of production

What State withdrawal?Facts…

Between rent and agreement …

There where the withdrawal could have suppress rent:Nothing has been done… (ex: major markets)

There where the «private sector» has always taken advantage of the existing situations: agreements have permitted to perpetuate the control of the market…(Export of fruits & vegetables, import of basic products, trade of fertilizers and seeds, transformation of subsidized products…)

What State withdrawal?Facts…

Exports: Was it necessary to break the «OCE tool»?

To explain our disappointment, there is the protectionism of the European UnionBut also the weak commercial dynamism of our exporters…And the de-monopolization of the OCE has had only advantagesIsn’t there a real need to rethink our export strategy, and to provide it with new instruments?

What State withdrawal?Facts…

When the withdrawal has not permitted neither the emergence of a new order nor the

preservation of the gains: Case of ORMVA…

offices reduced to simple «vendeurs d’eau»… But maintained with considerable active

population surpluses… And a total absence of vision regarding the future.

Un true waste of human and financial resources…

3.3. Prices and subsidies: What regulation for what competitiveness?A policy that did not achieved its economic or

social objectivesThe liberalization process has been well

engaged, but the most difficult part remains to be done, which doesn’t satisfy anyone…

How to let go of subsidies when poverty remains so huge?

How to suppress the subsidies and remain competitive?

What alternative regulation model?

3.4. Environment: What inheritance are we going to leave to our children?

Poverty and degradation of human resourcesFree-trade and ecologic risks (overexploitation of marginal/fragile areas, abandon of little productive regions (condemned to all sorts of desertification…) and concentration in intensive agriculture areas, condemned to an overexploitation of the environmentCompetitiveness and cost of protecting the environmentWorrying perspectives for 2025…

3.5. What State for what regulation?

The biggest challenge for Morocco: to succeed the transition from a largely extensive and protected agriculture to an intensive, competitive and more open agriculture in the world market, and this at an acceptable political, social and environmental price. There is no choice but to try to cope the current changes or tu suffer them…Liberalization of trade exchanges starts with internal reforms and extends to programmed and negotiated opening…

Thanks for your attention