Within the framework of the local declination of the Green Plan announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, the headquarters of the Essaouira province has just hosted a meeting dedicated to the presentation of the main axes of the provincial Green Plan.

This province, whose agricultural production chain is mainly constituted of goat, argan, olive, beekeeping, carob, and livestock farming, is composed of 52 rural communes extending over an area of 649,115 ha. The number of inhabitants amounts to 452,979, of which 357,413 are rural. Its diversified geography is composed of 51% plains, while the rest is constituted of mountainous regions. As for the climate, it has always been less lenient given the low annual rainfall. The number of agricultural lands is 649,156 ha, while water reserves total a figure of 83 million cubic meters shared between the groundwater of the Lokrimat region and the reserves of the Mohammed Ben Sliman Jazouli dam.

According to the Provincial Directorate of Agriculture (DPA), the agricultural sector is called upon to experience progress in terms of productivity and the valorization of local products which have acquired a very good reputation, given the favorable climatic conditions for the planting of certain trees such as the olive and the carob, and the great possibility of increasing the area of land which does not exceed 10% of cultivable land, among others.

The provincial Green Plan consists of enriching, densifying, structuring, and valorizing the pillars of agricultural activity, namely the olive, the carob, the argan, beekeeping, and goat and livestock farming. To this end, the olive tree will benefit, as an alternative crop, from an operation of extension, densification, and valorization based on the planting of several thousand hectares of olive trees while strengthening the capacities of 18 olive oil production units with a view to better valorizing the local product, to thus reach the figure of 5,600 tons by 2020. The argan tree, a tree with confirmed therapeutic and cosmetic virtues, is at the heart of this ambitious vision.

The DPA is betting on a modernization and upgrading plan for 15 cooperatives, the accompaniment of 350 others to improve their governance, the objective being to improve the socio-economic conditions of rural women while valorizing the local product. As for the goat, a quality label for red meats in the province, it occupies a special interest in this Green Plan which aims to improve the productivity of the livestock, through the creation of gatherings of goat breeders, the redevelopment of stables, the improvement of slaughter and sale conditions, and the implementation of a quality label specific to the argan goat. On the other hand, the plan provides for the creation and equipment of 5 cooperatives specialized in beekeeping and the upgrading of 10 others, the goal being to improve the productivity of honey and its derivatives, while valorizing the local product.

The provincial Green Plan includes a transversal component which consists of ensuring the necessary orientation and accompaniment to agricultural operators, the creation of professional organizations, and the development of legal, economic, and technical studies for the benefit of agricultural projects, among others.