Exceptional cereal harvest season in Morocco

CASABLANCA – Morocco’s agriculture minister Aziz Akhannouch announced an exceptional cereal harvest of 103 million quintals in the North African country thanks to the late but consistent rainfalls.

The 2017-2018 campaign thus represents an increase of 7.3% compared to the previous one, according to the final results from measures of yields by harvest in the field, said the agriculture ministry in a statement.

The harvest of soft wheat reached 59.1 million quintals: 24.2 million of durum wheat and 29.2 million of barley.

“This production was carried out on an area sown in main grains of 4.5 million hectares against 5.4 million in 2016-17, or -16% compared to the previous campaign,” said the ministry.

The yield, which reached a historic level of 22.9 quintals per hectare, was up 27% from the previous season and 7% compared to the year 2014-2015 during which a record production of 115 million quintals for an area of ​​5.37 million hectares of cereals was recorded.

“The reduction in the area of ​​cereals is due to the very late arrival of the autumn rains having greatly shortened the period of sowing," it said.

“But the campaign was able to benefit from the technical and technological efforts of farmers and the improvement of climatic conditions characterized by the abundance, the regularity and the good distribution in space and time of the rainfalls and the mild temperatures at the time throughout the season,” added the ministry.