Saline farming assessment mission
The focus of the mission was to identify salt affected farms that are suitable for future demonstration activities and identify local partners who are willing to be part of future activities to help Moroccan farmers to become more resilient to increasing salinity levels under (fresh)water scarce conditions. A team of Dutch experts from the Dutch companies The Salt Doctors and Acacia Water have visited Morocco in May 2022 to work on the objectives, together with Mr. Niek Schelling (Agricultural counselor for Morocco and Senegal) and Mr. Mohamed Amine Moustanjidi (senior agricultural policy adviser) of the Dutch Embassy.
The project has three objectives that were defined before the visit took place:
- Suitable locations and salinity affected farms will be identified to execute pilots for saline farming research and development of appropriate farming measures.
- Local partners will be identified in a participative team for preparation and execution of the salinity pilots, including local farmers, IAV, INRA, DRA, UM6P, FAO and Dutch partners, all with their specific roles.
- The team will perform on-location salinity assessments and focus on various aspects related to water and technical infrastructure, as well as a first needs assessment from institutes and farmers.
To reach the objectives, several locations (Errachidia, Erfoud, Ben Guerir and Agadir) were visited and meetings took place with various stakeholders. At the visited locations, samples of soil and water were collected and analyzed, and these results are also provided in this report. Also, several literature sources were used to determine hydrogeology and environmental aspects of the visited locations.