Unusual Climate Conditions Leave Moroccan Wheat Farmer in Limbo

AFP/APP

Morocco: Around this time every year, Moroccan wheat farmer Abderrahim Mohafid is usually preparing for his spring harvest, but this year his fields lay unusually bare.

On the road leading up to his hamlet in Berrechid province, Morocco’s historical breadbasket, situated some 40 kilometres (about 25 miles) southeast of Casablanca, vast fields languish as the country grapples with its sixth consecutive year of drought.

“The harvest is already lost,” said Mohafid, 54, as he glanced at his 20-hectare (nearly 50-acre) field, where almost nothing has grown.

“Wheat should already be at 60 centimetres.”

In a neighbouring village, Hamid Najem found himself in the same predicament.

His 52 hectares (about 128 acres) that have yielded soft wheat and barley in past years “are no longer good for anything,” said the 50-year-old.

“We’ve never had such a tough year.”

More than 88 percent of Berrechid’s vast agricultural lands are not irrigated, with farmers relying instead on rain, according to Morocco’s agriculture ministry.

Yet so far this year, the North African country has seen only about half the rainfall it did during the same period last year, Morocco’s water minister, Nizar Baraka, told AFP.

This has occurred in parallel with temperatures in Morocco increasing by an average of 1.8 degrees Celsius (3.2 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to the period between 1981 and 2010, he added.

In recent weeks, Moroccan authorities have restricted the opening of hammams and car wash stations in several cities and prohibited the watering of golf courses or gardens with drinking water, as the country’s dams are only at 23 percent capacity, compared to around 32 percent last year.