How to Plant Morocco’s Billion Trees
By DDr. Yossef Ben-Meir
Now is the planting season. As the Moroccan people do the best they can to plant trees and herbs that will enhance their
future and bring food security, it is also worth asking a question. How can farming families plant, adding value to
their product according to their potential, thus overcoming subsistence practices that trap them in poverty?
The good news is that the practical elements of a solution exist. Now it is a matter of bringing pilot projects to scale
for the nation, as enormous as the challenges are to planting on this magnitude, with their implications for water
management and the absorption by markets of far greater quantities of product.
Inbuilt Factors for Success – Plants and Land
Firstly – and thankfully – in the very areas where poverty is most concentrated there also exists a wide range of
indigenous tree and plant varieties that flourish without the application of pesticides and other chemicals. The list
includes fruit trees such as walnut, pomegranate, olive, lemon, fig, carob, date and almond as well as medicinal and
aromatic plants such as capers, lavender, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage and thyme.
Securing the organic certification of these and other species greatly enhances product value. Moreover, with this wide
range of product (and potential for added processing, such as drying or oil extraction) market saturation can be avoided
and each region afforded the opportunity develop agriculturally according to their specialized organic pathway.
Secondly, a Moroccan government agency – the High Commission for Waters, Forests and Combating Desertification
(popularly known as ‘Waters and Forests’) – has been notable in its support of pilot projects by lending land on which
community tree nurseries have been established.
Bringing the Project to Scale
A great number of these nurseries must be created for the Kingdom to generate the billion plants estimated to be
required to lift its inhabitants out of the cycle of poverty. In addition nurseries should be decentralized in
organizational terms; they should specialize in plant varieties native to their particular region and finally they
should facilitate the training of local community members in the complete process of establishing and running further
tree nurseries.
However, farming families have understandable concerns about risk as they make the transition from the historical barley
and corn cycle – even as it keeps them in poverty – to more lucrative cash crops. The loan of land by Waters and Forests
enables farmers to overcome these concerns since, from their perspective, they will not lose the use of their arable
land for the two-year period necessary for trees and plants to mature from seeds.
From the project-level perspective, the contribution of Waters and Forests is not only highly commendable but actually
essential in the bid to overcome rural poverty. Moreover, it represents a flexibility on the part of the agency in
adapting to include not only regular forestry trees but also, potentially, indigenous, organic fruit tree and aromatic
plant varieties.
The successful pilots can now be expanded to between 500 and 600 possible sites throughout the Kingdom, this initiative
ideally taking place within the framework of a clear national development strategy.
Leading the Field
The actions of Waters and Forests not only exemplify the vision needed to address fundamental barriers to sustainable
growth but also make the agency the leader in terms of contributing land for this purpose in Morocco (the pilot site
being a walnut nursery in the Asni municipality in the Marrakesh region that today boasts nearly 250,000 walnut trees).
Where Waters and Forests have led, others are beginning to follow. The Jewish community of Morocco, with approximately
the same number of potential sites, could become another vital large-scale contributor of land for community nurseries
throughout the Kingdom.
The cultural background to this is fascinating in itself – and practically unique to Morocco. The custom of saint
veneration entered Moroccan Muslim and Jewish life several centuries ago. As a result (and in addition to their Muslim
equivalents) there are hundreds of Jewish personalities, male and female, buried in isolation as well as in established
cemeteries, typically in rural locations. Following the diminution of the Jewish population in Morocco during the last
century, the tradition has been upheld by the community that remains as well as by a lively diaspora and with the
practical and moral support of the Moroccan government and people.
Aside from the maintenance necessary for these sacred sites, there is potential in the arable land that often lies
beside them unused. The pilot site for what is essentially an intercultural initiative, bringing new hope to local
Muslim farming communities from Jewish-maintained land, is at Akrich in the Tamsloht municipality, again not far from
Marrakesh. Thirty-thousand trees have already been raised and distributed in kind from the nursery, which was recently
visited by the Governor of El Haouz province, Mr. Younès El Bathaoui. A total of seven such parcels of terrain have now
been made available for loan and the initiative is poised to be launched across the Kingdom.
All of this exemplifies the model, both progressive and practical, that has been adopted in Morocco. In a developing
nation where cultural preservation as an end itself may be viewed as a luxury, it has been decided instead to create a
framework to celebrate the Kingdom’s mosaic of cultures while simultaneously advancing human development goals.
Moreover, Morocco may be the only place in Africa and the Middle East where local Muslim and Jewish collaboration
through this creative use of cultural resources is promoted and is taking place.
Putting It All Together
It is only right to encourage other contributors to follow suit by lending land for the establishment of
community-managed fruit tree and medicinal plant nurseries. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture has hundreds of
agricultural extension centers across Morocco, each potentially a location for a community nursery. It remains the case
that combining all the parcels of terrain available to Water and Forests, the Jewish community of Morocco, and the
Ministry of Agriculture and dedicating them to this use would generate between 80 and 100 million plants each year.
With these three contributions alone, Morocco would be well on its to achieving the billion necessary to end the scourge
of seemingly relentless rural poverty. What is more, successful fruit and green growth initiatives can provide the
financial basis for investment in a whole host of projects – education, health, women and youth empowerment – where the
potential is great and the need for justice urgent.
Now is the planting season – if we are successful in this, opportunities to plant further hope will be boundless.
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Dr. Yossef Ben-Meir is president of the High Atlas Foundation, a Moroccan-U.S. nonprofit organization that has planted more than 1 million trees in Morocco with community and
government partners.