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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Morocco: North farmers to substitute fruit trees for cannabis
Morocco Times
Saturday 21 Jan 2006 The Governor of the Province of Taounate (northern Morocco), Mohamed Fettal, has declared the launching of a programme aiming at planting 600,000 fruit trees in the southern regions of the Rif mountains and the pre-Rif. Fettal said that the programme, which includes fig, carob, and olive trees, conforms to the goals of the National Initiative for Human Development (NIHD). The project aims at varying the region's agricultural production, increasing the farmers' revenue, improving life conditions in rural areas, avoiding soil erosion, and creating an alternative agricultural activity to replace cannabis production. Fettal precised that during the current agricultural season, 120,000 carob saplings will be distributed, as part of the programme facing soil erosion. This will be done in cooperation with the Agency for the Economic and Social Development of the Northern Region (APDN), regional communes and the region's Water and Forest services. The project also benefits from the support of the Fruit Trees Development Programme, promoted by the Agriculture Development Fund, and the MEDA programme for integrated rural development. The release issued by the Taounate province stressed that developing rural areas in one of the priorities fixed by the government. The same source added that enhancing the production of carob saplings in the regional tree nursery of Sahel Bou Taher (Taounate region) required the development of a strategy to produce 270,000 saplings during the current year, 300,000 next year, and 470,000 in 2008. The programme developing fig and carob trees includes planting 150,000 carob saplings in the areas threatened by erosion, and planting 200 ha of forest lands on a yearly basis. It also involves planting 2,000 fig trees, and helping rural inhabitants create local associations to market their carob crops. With the aims of increasing the farmers' revenues, local associations will also have the opportunity to sign cooperation agreements with the companies specialised in the industrialisation of products extracted from carob to make food, medicines, and cosmetics. The release added that 487,000 fruit trees will be grown, including 400,500 olive saplings, 55,000 almond, 15,000 grenadine, and 14,000 fig trees. A similar project has been launched lately in the province of Larache (northern Morocco) with the aims of replacing cannabis plantations by olive trees.
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