King Mohammed VI calls for balanced, viable international agricultural order
Morocco, Economics, 2/5/2005

Morocco's King Mohammed VI has called for setting up a balanced, viable international agricultural order that allows each country to implement its agricultural policy effectively.

In a message addressed to participants of the international forum on agriculture "Agricultural Davos," opened Friday in Dakar, the sovereign said Morocco is honored to see that its experience is one of the models submitted to the Forum.

The king underlined in the message, read on his behalf by Prince Moulay Rachid, Morocco's experience in agriculture, saying this sector "remains the mainstay of development in rural areas, home to 45% of the population."

Agriculture is also the country's largest labour-intensive activity, accounting for 44% of the working population, said the king, noting that Morocco's strategy in this realm mainly aims at achieving food security and integration into the global economy.

The Moroccan monarch gave an overview on the projects carried out in Morocco to secure higher output and improve living conditions of people in agricultural areas.

He said the challenge to irrigate one million hectares has been achieved "thanks to integrated, overall planning as regards the country's main water basins, and the construction of more than a hundred dams and other hydraulic works."

"We have managed to irrigate over 1.2 million hectares. This provides agriculture with an added value of 45% and accounts for three-quarters of Morocco's agricultural exports," he said.

King Mohammed VI emphasized that "the problem of vulnerability to climate change, combined with the various scourges threatening our lands and crops, such as the locust peril, require new strategies for risk management and resource development."

He noted that "protection of the environment and of agricultural, forest and pastoral ecosystems is another cause for concern, which calls for effective enforcement of the prerequisites of sustainable development."

Some 500 participants from political, economic and scientific circles, and delegates of the African civil society, private enterprises and farmers organizations are attending the Forum.

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