B. Boulanouar1 and A.M. Matthess-Guerrero2
1. BP 6570, Rabat Institute, Rabat, Morocco
2. INRA/GTZ-Project Viande Rouge, BP 258, Meknès, Morocco
Morocco has an estimated population of 27 million people, of whom 40% are involved in agriculture. The total surface area is 70 million hectares, approximately half of which are used for agriculture and grazing. Eleven per cent of the total area is arable land, of which 50% is in barley, 40% in bread and durum wheat and 9% in maize; 7% is forest and 30% is rangeland. The climate is Mediterranean, with hot, dry summers and cold, wet winters. The growing season lasts generally for six months. Water flow in most rivers is small and irregular, and is mostly captured by large dams to irrigate nine areas that total approximately 800,000 ha.
Unreliable rainfall, fragmented land ownership patterns, generally poor integration of crop and animal production, lack of cultivated forage crops, and inadequate or non-sustainable resource management have been the major impediments to improved agricultural production. Inefficient research services, inadequate transfer of information to farmers, and farmers’ inability to buy inputs have impeded the adoption of new methods. The contribution of agriculture to GDP has declined from 30% in the 1970s to the present 20%. Morocco began to import corn and wheat in the 1960s, and these imports rose considerably after abnormally dry conditions between 1979 and 1985. Agricultural products now make up 20% of imports.
There are four main agro-ecological zones in Morocco:
The high plateaux on the east of the middle Atlas, with annual rainfall of 250 mm. Some barley is grown, but yields are very variable. The production system is nomadic, although some settlement is now taking place.
The middle Atlas region, where common range is grazed in summer by transhumant sheep flocks. Crop and livestock production systems are integrated and some settlement is now taking place.
The Rif, high Atlas, small Atlas and the southern oasis. Although seemingly very distinct, these zones have in common agricultural systems that are settled, diversified, relatively intensive and usually irrigated. Sheep raising is common, although flocks are small. Forage production and conservation have existed for a very long time.
The coastal plains, Chaouia, Doukkala, Abda, Chiadma, Gharb, Moulouiya and the plateaux of the west and of the Sais. These are the areas of large-scale cereal cultivation associated with sheep and beef cattle production, which are increasingly intensive.
The Rif and Atlas Mountains have a profound influence on climate and rainfall and, therefore, on agricultural activity. The Rif and the middle Atlas separate the plains and the coastal plateaux from the vast eastern plateaux. The high and the small Atlas together constitute a natural barrier several hundred kilometres long that protects the north-west part of the country from the harshness of the Sahara. Winter snows in the two mountain chains provide important water resources.
Because of its geographical location, Morocco is relatively more humid and its vegetation is probably more varied than in the other countries of the Maghreb. Intensive agriculture exists in irrigated areas and along the Atlantic coast. East of the middle Atlas and on the high eastern plateaux, farming is replaced by vast areas of steppe covered mainly by Stipa tenacissima and Artemisia herba-alba. Approximately 800,000 ha (10% of the arable land) are irrigated, mainly for wheat. Agro-industrial by-products are used for livestock, mainly dairy cattle.
Rangeland, which occupies about 30% of the total area, is deteriorating, because of population growth and encroachment, increased grazing pressure and mismanagement.
Feed resources in Morocco are mainly rangeland, cereal crop by-products, forage crops and agro-industrial by-products. Rangeland contributes, on average, 36% of the animal feed requirements. Although declining, it is the chief feed resource in extensive production systems, particularly for sheep. Cereal grains, mostly barley, provide 11% of the livestock feed requirements, and cereal production, which occupies 80% of cultivated land, is expected to increase. Straw and stubble provide 30% of the total livestock feed requirements and are fed mainly during late summer, autumn and early winter. Other cereals, such as sorghum and oats, make a small contribution to livestock diets, and maize is mainly used in poultry production. Agro-industrial by-products provide 12% of the total feed resources; forage crops, irrigated lucerne and clover, and vetch–oat from rainfed areas contribute 10%; and weedy fallow 10%.
Livestock production in Morocco, in addition to meat and milk, provides income, employment and by-products. Recent estimates indicate that the contribution of livestock production to total agricultural production declined from one-third in 1969 to less than one-quarter in 1987. The 80% of the farmers who own less that 5 ha of land each keep more than 60% of the cattle and 50% of the sheep on only 25% of the cultivable land. Farmers, particularly small-scale farmers, invest in livestock as a form of savings, to buffer against crop failure.
There are currently about 16 million sheep in the country, of which over 90% are in rainfed areas. There are six major breeds, the most important of which are Beni Guil (2.3 million head), Timahdit (1.2 million head) and Boujaâd (800,000 head). About 5000 sheep of imported meat breeds are used in cross-breeding programmes.
While sheep production is declining in importance as an economic activity and nomadic or transhumant systems are being replaced by sedentary systems on irrigated lands or near towns, it is still extremely important as the main livelihood in some areas. Integration of sheep and crop production is increasing, with the recycling of by-products and the utilisation of fresh or conserved forage. Degradation of rangeland and forest, because of poor management and the cutting of trees for fuelwood, is a serious problem.
Traditional systems are also important in providing animals for use in cross-breeding programmes in other regions of Morocco.
There are about 2.5 million cattle, of which 65% are local breeds, kept in three main systems of production:
The dairy system is based on irrigated land, using high-producing Friesian and Holstein dairy breeds and some cross-breeds. The main product is milk, and calves are sold for fattening. Irrigated forage production provides 40% of the feed requirements, mainly from perennial alfalfa and berseem (Egyptian clover); concentrates such as sugar-beet pulp, wheat bran, cereal and legume grains and commercial concentrate provide 50%; and cereal straw 10%. Annual milk production from Friesian and Holstein cows varies from 2400 to 3800 litres per livestock unit (LU), depending on the area, although some producers in the area of Doukkala get 6800 litres per LU.
Production of calves and milk from Friesian and local breeds and their crosses is found in the more favourable rainfed areas and around irrigated areas. The feed base is diverse—weedy fallow, straw and stubble, agro-industrial by-products and some rangeland, with little cultivated forage. Agro-industrial by-products and other concentrates such as cereal grain and faba beans make up 30–50% of the diet. Annual milk yield for Friesians is 2000 litres, for crosses 1500 litres and for local breeds 600 litres; meat production is 190 kg live weight per LU for Friesians, 160 kg for crosses and 120 kg for local breeds. Milk that is not consumed by the calf or the farm family is sold.
In rainfed cereal production areas, local breeds are kept to produce young calves for fattening. Straw and stubble provide about 40% of the feed requirements, and weedy fallow and rangeland another 40%. In addition to producing about 110 kg of calf live weight per LU annually in local breeds, about 500 litres of milk per LU is produced, mostly for household consumption.
An estimated 4.8 million goats, mainly local breeds, are kept almost entirely in the rangeland and forest. Supplementation is rare, except when there is snow, when feed is scarce or during lactation in dairy goats. Annual production varies from 8 to 16 kg of kid live weight, depending on the region. There is some semi-intensive milk production, using crop residues, some purchased concentrates and occasionally a forage crop.
There are also about 820,000 donkeys, 470,000 mules, 200,000 horses, 60,000 camels, 10,000 pigs and 37 million chickens. Poultry production provides annually 152,000 million tonnes of white meat—about 35% of the total meat consumption—and 1.4 billion eggs.
Sheep, cattle and goats provide 98% of the red meat production, which increased from 200,000 to 300,000 million tonnes annually between 1970 and 1993, mainly because of increases in mean individual carcass weights from 112 to 160 kg per head in cattle and from 11 to 14 kg in sheep. Of the total red meat produced 43% is mutton, 40% is beef and 8% is goat. Ruminants also provide annually around 15 million tonnes of wool and 60 million tonnes of skins and leather.
Red meat production is mainly from extensive systems, where feeding is based on spontaneous vegetation and crop by-products. It is subject to wide annual and seasonal fluctuations, because of variations in annual rainfall and because of feed shortages in late summer, autumn and early winter.
Annual milk production is about 920 million litres, 41 litres per capita, but is subject to large supply fluctuations between seasons, because of the fluctuating feed supply.
Following are some of the physical, social, economic and technical constraints on animal production:
Strategic goals of agricultural development in Morocco, established in the early 1990s, are to ensure national food security, improve farmers’ incomes, integrate agriculture in the national economy and protect the environment.
Government strategy for developing the ruminant sector and the rangelands is based on examining different scenarios for feed availability for sheep and cattle production, on the assumption of changes in demand and improvements in productivity. It is proposed that the ruminant population not be increased, but rather that productivity be improved, with specialised production systems developed in different regions.
Pastoral, arid, semi-arid and mountainous areas will keep breeding animals, while milk and crop production and fattening will take place in agropastoral areas near large urban centres.
Major areas of intervention will be in
To contribute to these goals, national research will concentrate on ruminant production, particularly of sheep, forage production for cattle, epidemiological studies of major ruminant diseases and of nutritional diseases to increase productivity and competitiveness by
At the beginning of the 1990s, there was no national research unit for the different ruminant production systems, research activities were scattered throughout different institutions, and collaboration was based on the initiative of individual researchers. The Small Ruminant Research Program (SRRP) of the National Agricultural Research Institute of Morocco (INRA) was started in 1992, as one of five priority INRA research programmes, with support initially from the World Bank and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau and now from the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). The first task of the SRRP team was to elaborate a research agenda. Their mandate was limited to five major sheep production systems, and responsibility was delegated to five multidisciplinary regional teams. Regional mixed working groups, which included producers and extension workers, were involved at the national level to ensure coherence.
The programming-by-objectives approach, elaborated by INRA and the International Service for National Agricultural Research (ISNAR) was adopted for the research design. This approach focuses on the technical needs of producers and on official development goals, and it takes into account the scarcity of human and physical resources. It has been used by INRA previously for research programmes on crop and forage production. Its application to livestock research identified several specific problems related to either the discipline or the small ruminant sector in Morocco, such as the lack of delineation of production systems.
The process combines research design at the regional or the sheep production system level (Figure 1) with a supporting analysis of sector information concerning the Moroccan meat sector (Al-Balghitti 1994). At the regional level, research design comprised several phases of analysis, conception, priority setting and validation in the framework of the terms of references given by the sector committee. After achieving consensus on the projects to be conducted regionally, the entire research agenda was validated at the sector level with sector committees, and at the national level with the Ministry of Agriculture.
1. sheep producers, extension agents, breeder association, regional agricultural development agencies.
2. university researchers and members of the Sector Committee.
Source: Adapted from Matthess-Guerrero and El-Housni 1995.
Figure 1. Stages of planning by objective (PBO) for the Small Ruminant Research Project.
As a result, a long-term research programme was designed, with 25 projects for sheep production in five regions:
The PBO approach has also been valuable both for producers to identify with SRRP and for the future development of SRRP. Substantial knowledge of sheep production systems has been gained with the minimum of duplicated effort, and the capacity of SRRP staff in designing client-oriented research has been substantially improved in a learning-by-doing process, involving planning, budgeting, national coordination and mobilisation of external finance. A prototype of a future national small ruminant network has been established.
The SRRP started to implement the approved programme in May 1994, and by 1997, there were 20 researchers working in five regional teams in collaboration with farmers, professional organizations and extension services. The future challenge will be to strengthen more clearly structured operational linkages between national research, government development entities and NGOs.
Al-Balghitti A. 1994. Analyse du secteur de l’élevage ovin. Rapport de Titularisation, Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique. INRA, Meknès, Morocco. 77 pp.
Matthess-Guerrero A. and El-Housni A. 1995. Programming by objective (PBO) in INRA’s Small Ruminant Research Programme: results and management implications of a top-down/bottom-up process of research design. In: Bosch M. and Preuss H-J.A. (eds), Management Issues in National Agricultural Research Systems: Concept, Instruments, Experiences. INRA, Meknès, Morocco. pp. 131–150.
SRRP–Regional Team El-Koudia. 1993. Elevage agro-pastoral ovin dans le Bour Intermédiaire Atlantique: caractéristiques du système, contraintes et perspectives de recherche. Working Paper No.7. INRA, Meknès, Morocco. 43 pp.
SRRP–Regional Team Errachidia. 1993. Elevage ovin oasien: caractéristiques et contraintes. Working Paper No. 9. INRA, Meknès, Morocco. 25 pp.
SRRP–Regional Team Meknès. 1993. Les contraintes du système de l’élevage ovin-caprin du Moyen-Atlas. INRA Working Paper No. 4. INRA, Meknès, Morocco. 60 pp.
SRRP–Regional Team Oujda. 1993. Elevage ovin pastoral à l’Oriental: caractéristiques du système, contraintes et perspectives de recherche. Working Paper No. 5. INRA, Meknès, Morocco. 36 pp.
SRRP–Regional Team Tadla. 1993. Elevage agro-pastoral ovin dans le Bour Défavourable: caractéristiques du système et contraintes majeures. Working Paper No. 8. INRA, Meknès, Morocco. 40 pp.
