Morocco welcomes new year with blessed rainfalls

Morocco welcomed the new year with blessed rains raising new hopes of a good agricultural season after the delay observed in rainfalls.

In Morocco, the agricultural sector accounts for around 20 % of the country's GDP and employs nearly half of an estimated 5-million working-force.

Alarmed by the specter of drought, the Moroccan government decided to summon the national commission in charge of rural development to take adequate measures to alleviate the farmers hardship and make up for potential shortage in cereals, water and other agricultural produce.

"The rains might have come a little bit late for cereals, but this doesn't mean we couldn't deal with the situation," a senior Moroccan official told Thursday here a news conference after the weekly cabinet meeting.

"The rainfall has given the farmers hopes to cultivate more lands," he said, adding that total surface cultivated now stood at three million hectares.

"It is possible now to reach four million hectares," the same source added.

Last season 4.9 million hectares were cultivated, down from nearly six million hectares in the 1995/96 season.