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Moroccan Economic Sectors

Morocco's agricultural sector, including forestry and fishing, constituted 16.7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) but employed 40 percent of the workforce in 2004. The agricultural sector is regarded as volatile, because of its vulnerability to inconsistent rainfall among other factors, and has been contracting in recent years. Morocco's principal crops, in order of yield, are rice, sugar beets, barley, potatoes, tomatoes, and sugarcane. Other agricultural products include wheat, citrus fruits, olives, other vegetables, wine, and livestock. In 2002 Morocco's forestry production consisted of 926 cubic meters of roundwood and about 83 cubic meters of sawnwood.

Agriculture represents 15 percent of the GDP and thus impacts heavily on the economy as a whole. Nearly 40 percent of the labor force is in agriculture. Grains account for over 60 percent of agricultural production and area planted to wheat has expanded dramatically over the last 20 years because of the government support.

Moroccan agricultural production depends heavily on rainfall as less than 10 percent of the arable land is irrigated. Agriculture can be divided in three major sectors: 1) Modern, private, irrigated, highly capitalized, and export oriented farms producing mostly fruit and vegetables 2) Agriculture within reorganized large scale damirrigated perimeters producing mostly dairy, sugar crops, seeds, fruit and vegetables mostly for the local market 3) Rain-fed agriculture with more favorable land in the northwest (growing mostly grains, olives, pulses, red meat and dairy) and less favorable land in the south and east (growing mostly grains and non-intensive sheep production) For many commodities (wheat, dairy products, corn, soybeans, sugar), Morocco will continue to depend on imports even during years when rain is plentiful. In contrast, for other commodities (feed, pulses, dairy cattle), the import market will fluctuate dramatically depending on rainfall.

The lack of clear agricultural policy and the prevalence of small farms (75 percent are less than 12 acres, with an average herd of four cows per farm) complicated inherited land status, and the increasing land prices pose serious challenges to agricultural policy makers. Policy makers struggle with the conflicting underlying principles of economies of scale and capitalization requirements necessary to modernize the agriculture sector and the desire to alleviate poverty and maintain the social structure of the traditional rural society.

Agriculture suffers from the lack of public investment in research and development, marketing infrastructure, weak institutional capacity including lack of an effective extension service to transfer suitable technologies to small holders, lack of market information, and weak farmer organization in most sectors.