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One of the significant consequences of global climate change has been recurring shocks to the agricultural sectors in many countries. From warming coastal sea temperatures and freshwater salinization to recurring severe droughts and soil degradation, the challenges across the globe are many and growing.
Agriculture in Morocco is about more than food supply. The agriculture sector contributes about fifteen percent to Morocco’s total gross domestic product. Add the fishing and forestry sectors and nearly forty percent of Moroccans find full or seasonal employment by working the land or on the water. The future may be digital, but agriculture places third in terms of contribution to national GDP behind the service and manufacturing sectors.
Devoid of massive fossil fuel export terminals, repeat visitors can sense Morocco embraces agriculture as both an economic resource and a cultural touchstone—from iconic argan trees near Agadir to commercial strawberry fields outside Larache to Rif Mountain olive orchards. Ag is everywhere.
A new study from the United Nation’s Science Policy Interface (SPI) has quantified the dramatic decline in the amount of arable (farmable) land on Earth. The study confirms what many already suspect: Food security will increasingly become connected to national security. For Africa, future climate predictions carry ominous warnings. The SPI report found Africa will lose about sixteen percent of its GDP in the next half decade due to the loss of productive land and the associated economic dislocations.
A widespread drought in Morocco in 2023 saw wheat imports rise, though 2024 saw a significant rebound in revenue for the country’s fruit and vegetable export crops. Morocco is expected to import 7.5 MMt (million metric tons) of wheat/cereals for the twelve months ending in mid-2025, according to US Department of Agriculture and S&P Global estimates.
This represents a large outflow of cash that is dampened slightly by the availability of wheat and cereals from traditional sources like France and the United States but also from new trading partners like Russia and Argentina, a fast-growing wheat export juggernaut. Morocco is also adept at reading global trading markets for wheat and cereals, knowing when to keep robust import support programs to aid local crop importers dealing with high prices and when to incentivize expanded domestic production where possible.
From French and Russian wheat imports to American soybeans, Moroccan tomatoes to Turkish oats, Argentine sheep to Brazilian olive oil, agriculture finds pertinence in the broader international engagement efforts of the North African nation as it navigates numerous (and shifting) geopolitical obstacles while attempting to control stubbornly high consumer food prices.
Location matters
As 2024 ends, Morocco will likely be the top non-EU supplier of fresh fruits and vegetables this year to the European Union, according to current data from the European Office of Statistics (Eurostat). Tomatoes are Morocco’s largest export agricultural product into the EU. Blueberries have overtaken strawberries and raspberries to become the top berry export. The value of Moroccan agricultural exports to the EU alone is about €2 billion. The nation’s frozen fish and seafood global exports in 2023 totaled nearly $3 billion.
A United Kingdom court ruling in 2023 upheld Moroccan agricultural imports as part of the UK-Morocco Association Agreement. A £400 million-plus fruit and vegetable import relationship continues. Product labeling issues will continue to be debated and litigated but longstanding agricultural trade relationships will be crucial as the entire Mediterranean region continues to warm twenty percent faster than the global average, according to the UN’s Environment Programme.
Dozens of Spanish agricultural production companies, including multinational Grupo Agromar, now operate in Morocco. This represents a two-way agro-industry relationship that has grown as relations improved over the past two years. A new stumbling block—Spain began testing a new labeling and safety screening program for agricultural imports coming from countries like Morocco—speaks to the maturation of the agricultural trade relationship between Morocco and Spain. Concerned Spanish farmers but no angry vitriol emanating from Rabat or Madrid.
Agro 2.0
This past spring, Morocco and France signed a formal cooperation agreement on higher education and technical vocational training in agriculture. Wheat diplomacy meets tomato diplomacy. Infrastructure, train network and energy agreements between the two nations came later in the fall. As agriculture incorporates more technology, rural economies will benefit from more efficient use of natural resources and sustainable farming practices, core components of agro-related vocational education.
In 2023, for instance, Morocco’s government budgeted about $1.6 billion (nearly five percent of GDP) to subsidize butane gas canisters for consumers, including for farmers who utilize gas-operated well pumps. Additionally, construction on several Atlantic coast desalinization plants is now underway to partially mitigate future irrigation and drinking water supply challenges.
Last week, the World Bank’s Board of Directors approved $250 million in funding for the Morocco Transforming Agri-food Systems Program. The multi-year effort will increase the country’s agricultural and food production system’s resilience to climate change. The fund will also bolster quality control mechanisms, crop storage practices and general sustainability in the sector, piggybacking on the country’s previously announced Generation Green 2020-2030 program.
Agro-diplomacy with the EU and multi-national organizations has already yielded benefits in quality control practices within Morocco. The country now has GLOBALG.AP (small farm assurance and sustainability accreditation) certification providers.
The United States exported over $619 million in agricultural products to Morocco in 2023, from crucial wheat supplies to soybeans and tree nuts. In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) hosted its first-ever Agribusiness Trade Mission (ATM) in Morocco. It was the agency’s largest such mission ever to Africa and reflects an ongoing close security relationship between the two nations as well as Morocco’s standing as an unofficial northern gateway to expanded trade in Africa.
Beyond export crops, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) has become an innovator in experimental agriculture labs with the goal of increasing yields in degraded, acidic or phosphorus-limited soils both at home and in several African nations.
Morocco’s multibillion-dollar phosphate company, OCP Group, helped establish UM6P and funds the university’s growing agricultural partnerships with West- and Sub-Saharan African nations, collaborating in the creation of detailed digital soil maps which allow for tailored fertilizer, irrigation and land use. As the continent continues to warm and productive arable land becomes even more critical, phosphates will be as important as finance for national development.
Beyond new models of sustainable agriculture and livability that will accompany climate change, Morocco and governments across the globe will increasingly orient their diplomatic engagements to ensure reliable agricultural output and accessible consumer food products that are generally affordable. That’s a big task with so many climate and supply chain unknowns.
For Morocco, the warming climate and recurring droughts represent a clear and approaching danger. Morocco’s diverse agricultural exports and its growing agricultural trade relations may not shield the nation from the worst physical effects of global climate change but it may dampen diplomatic and consumer ones.